


In Another Life

by CheerUpLovely



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU collection, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 50,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheerUpLovely/pseuds/CheerUpLovely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of AU prompts from yespleasehawkeye.tumblr.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrow to the Heart [Soulmate AU]

“I don’t think I believe in soul mates,” Felicity declares one day, when they’re done with college and there’s nothing more to do than lay out in the middle of the park with a bottle of champagne stolen from Oliver’s parents wine cellar.

“Everyone believes in soul mates,” Oliver scoffed, his voice half slurred as he rolled his head around the grassy verge, because he liked the way the action made the stars spin.

“I’m serious.”

He turns to look at her, his best friend sprawled out in her graduation dress, ignoring the way that the green lace skirt of her dress was now hiked halfway up her thigh on one side.

“You’re full of shit,” he said, bursting out into laughter halfway through.

–

He knows she believes in soulmates, because she’s got a mark. Every time she drinks, she declares she thinks that it’s stupid, and he disputes the idea by reminding her that she can only dismiss it so much because she does have a mark. People who have marks don’t get a choice in the matter - they have a soul mate, and one day they’ll meet, and then life is complete.

She feels incomplete now. College was her livelihood. His passing college was her hobby. She dragged him through M.I.T with her because he couldn’t drop out of another school without his parents disinheriting him, and it’d be a shame to lose access to the wine cellar and his car. Somehow they both graduated, but now there wasn’t anything to occupy her time. She felt incomplete.

Her father left when she was very young. Neither of her parents had marks, but that wasn’t uncommon. Soul marks were rare these days. There’s a programme on MTV that tries to unite people who have matching marks, and sometimes it actually works. Some people tattoo over their marks, some add to them to try and make them match the marks of someone they care for. The truth always comes out in the end.

Felicity held on to her virginity all through college, determined that if she did have to have a soul mate out there, then she’d do it right. She’d save herself and give all of herself to her soul mate. Oliver reminds her of last night’s episode of Find My Mark about the guy who tried to find his soulmate by sleeping his way through every city in the States. She’s firm about her decision though, despite the guys who came on to her - which they did, all the time. A pretty blonde amid endless computer labs of guys who look at her like she’s walked off the posters on their walls? She’s prime staring material and she doesn’t even see it. Even the jocks wanted her and she didn’t even bat her eyelashes at them. Oliver spent their entire senior year half growling at her because there was talk of the hacker girl who was saving her virginity for her soulmate, an almost archaic action, and everyone wanted a piece of that.

He’s seen her mark plenty of times. She doesn’t cover it, but because she often wears cardigans she managed to keep the mark on her wrist out of sight a lot of the time. Hers is the shape of an intricate arrow, the feathers at the end so detailed it would be impossible for an imposter to try and mimic her mark. It’s so ornate in its design, and quite obviously beautiful. Oliver loves her mark. It suits her skin so well that he always ends up tracing it with his fingers when he’s been drinking. Once, during the Great Sharpie Incident of Finals Week, he’d ended up colouring it in bright colours and turning it into a fake tattoo sleeve of arrows that circled her entire lower arm and hadn’t washed off for three weeks.

–

“Do you have a mark?” she asks him one day.

“I thought you didn’t believe in soul mates?” he reminds her.

–

So here’s the thing. Somewhere, Felicity has a soulmate. That soulmate will love her unconditionally, more fully and completely than anything else that she will ever feel. She’ll marry that person, have children, raise a family with her soulmate, and she’ll never love the same way again.

The problem is that Oliver doesn’t have a mark.

But he loves her.

He loves her a whole lot.

–

“I did a stupid thing.”

She turns up at his parents house one night when the rest of his family are staying up at his grandparents beach house. Oliver stayed behind because he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to use the football game tickets Tommy gave him.

Felicity’s drunk. Really drunk.

She’s leaning against the doorway, looking at him like a lost puppy, and he invites her in without a second thought. He gives her a pair of his sweat pants and one of his hoodies to change into and hangs up the strapless purple dress she shouldn’t be wearing in the middle of winter without a jacket because really, he’s not dealing with pneumonia tonight no matter how nice it looked. He makes her tea, and they curl up on the couch that sits on the end of his bed and he asks her what the stupid thing was.

“I went home with a random guy from a club,” she mumbled, propping her head up on her hand and drawing her knees up.

She looks so small, so…unknown to herself.

“Did you…?”

“No,” she said, screwing her eyes shut. “But I…wanted to. Not with him. I suppose not really at all. But…I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” he tells her, his arm falling onto the back of the couch and fixing her with a look. “Well, it was stupid to go home with a random guy, but…” She sighs into her balled up first and shakes her head. “I thought you were saving yourself for…”

“For my soulmate?” she asks, shaking her head as in disgust in the word. “Why should I? You were probably right when you said they were sleeping their way through an entire city–”

“–I didn’t mean–”

“I just wanted to feel…wanted,” she explains in a small tone that breaks his heart slightly. “Why should I have to wait to be loved? There are plenty of people that just hook up with people and they’re happy, why can’t I do that?”

He takes hold of her wrist and strokes his thumb over her mark, her reminder of what she wants, what she promised to herself. “Because it’s not what you want,” he reminds her. “You’re going to have everything, that’s what this means.”

“What I want is to feel something, Oliver,” she says with tears in her eyes. “I feel…close. Like what I’m supposed to have is so close. But all I really want is to just be open with someone. I want to be able make mistakes and not feel like I’m tarnishing something. So I thought I could just go out…get it over with, get this stupid virginity thing out of the way and then it’s done with. I mean, what if sex is really bad? What if I’m waiting all this time for something that’s really bad? What if the guy I’m supposed to end up with is just abnormally lousy at sex and I’ll never know what it was I was missing-?”

He’s kissing her before he knows what he’s doing. He isn’t sure if it’s the broken look on her face, longing for love, or the idea that she might never experience good sex. She kisses him back, and it’s sloppy, she’s still half drunk and he’s really not thought this through, but her lips are all tingling warmth against his and he just wants more, more, more of her.

When they part, her tea is spilled on the carpet, and she’s straddling his lap. Both of them struggle to catch their breath, and it doesn’t help that all he can see is the dark longing in her eyes, the want and need she’s still not sure how to handle.

“I’m good at sex,” he blurts out, which just makes her laugh.

He strokes her back as she laughs against his shoulder, and he can’t stop his hands from roaming up her sides. Then they’re dipping beneath his hoodie, and travelling up, up, up, and her head shoots up with a gasp.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles instantly, but when she says nothing he back tracks, shaking his head. “No, I’m not sorry. I…want you to be happy. If I can do this for you–”

“But…our marks are different,” she says with a hint of disappointment. “They can’t be the same or we’d—”

Oliver silences her by sitting forward a little and pulling off his t-shirt. The action reveals a scar across the top of his chest. It’s faded well over the years, something he picked up after a lot of skin grafts following a firey car wreck he was victim two at three years old. He brings her hand up to the marred skin and swallows thickly. “Felicity…”

“Your mark was here,” she realizes, her fingertips stroking over the skin and god, he felt warm for the first real time in his life.

“Yeah,” he says with a thick tone.

She leans forward at that, kissing him but still not quite understanding. He can feel that part of her were hesitant, and he turns the kiss up her throat, not fighting how perfect it was to touch her skin and his heart feels like it was going to burst. His arms wrap around her as if they if they were made to fit. His skin was itching with the need to touch more of her, and the knowledge of her in his lap, wearing his clothing, suddenly filled him with a primal need for something more. Something he needed. Something he wanted. Something he thought he’d lost.

He knows she feels it to when his lips reach the hollow of her throat and her arms come up to the back of his neck, her tiny hands tightening in his hair. She gasps, her hips rocking against his, and while it brings a moan from his lips he’s far too distracted by the way she brings her hands to his cheeks and pulls his head up so she can see him.

“Your mark was an arrow,” she realizes in a breathy whisper.

–

As the sun rises, Felicity’s curled up in the arms of her best friend. The arms of her soul mate. She can feel his heart beating as if it’s within her own chest. When she touches his wrist, his veins are almost throbbing with a new life that is meant for her, and hers for him. She’s felt it this whole time, right on the balance, right on the edge of control, because he’s been so close to her all along. He’s seen her mark so many times in the past, and knew that his was the same. He’s wanted her to fall for him madly, deeply, and without the sense of obligation.

She has.

She has fallen for him hard, passionately, and completely above and beyond her control.

And it feels like coming home.

–

“I don’t think I believe in soul mates,” she tells him.

“Shut up and marry me, Felicity.”


	2. What Do We Do Now? [Raising Thea AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:Is it possible for you to so a universe where Oliver and felicity are raising a younger Thea?

On a Sunday morning, Oliver woke up slowly. That was a shock in itself. He usually woke to a beeping or shuffling of some kind. These days there was always an alarm clock blaring or a text alert going off, or a tiny body crawling into the bed and starting to jump around. For once, that hadn’t happened. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun was just starting to rise, he couldn’t hear anything, and this was…nice. Since there was no pressing need to move, he lay still for a while longer, basking in the sheets.

Except these weren’t his sheets. It wasn’t his pillow. It wasn’t his anything.

He rolled to his head to the side and was met with a mass of blonde hair spreading over onto the pillow he’d claimed as his own temporarily. Felicity. His best friend. Well, she had been his best friend. She still was. Just now things were…different. More. Something. They had a something, obviously, because his mind was even starting to babble as if she’d taken over every part of him entirely.

A year ago, they didn’t have a something at all, at least, nothing more than a friendship. She’d been his best friend since high school. He’d lost touch with a lot of his childhood friends when they all went to college and now college was…pretty much over for him. He’d gone to school on Gotham for a while, then Central City, but just as he was considering dropping out of there as well he’d gotten news of a terrible accident.

His parents had been taking a second honeymoon when their boat, the Queens Gambit, had sunk during a storm. The boat had washed up in pieces on a nearby island, along with their bodies. Oliver, devastated, had rushed home to Starling City immediately where his younger sister, Thea, was at home in the temporary care of their housekeeper, Raisa.

He grew up quickly in the weeks followed. His parents had recently updated their will, stating that if anything were to happen to them that Thea was to be cared for by Oliver, but he wasn’t twenty-one for another eight months and the courts hadn’t been confident with his very public party image being a responsible adult to care for a six-year-old girl. When they’d said the alternative was for Thea to go with Child Protective Services, he grew up instantly. Everything was about Thea.

They assigned temporary custody to Raisa, on the condition that in a six-month trial period Oliver would have the opportunity to better himself and provide a stable living environment for his sister. He’d called on his friends for assistance where he could - his ex-girlfriend, Laurel, was studying law, and despite a rocky breakup she’d been emailing him information that might be able to help him without looking like he was taking instruction from the family lawyers. Tommy, a favourite of Thea’s, made sure to visit every weekend from Central City. Most other friends were distracted by their studies or their own lives and after the funeral he’d not seen them.

Felicity had been the best. Felicity had come back from college only days after him, and had stayed in one of the guest rooms. It helped that Thea adored her, always happy to spend her time after school learning how to play new games on Felicity’s tablet and to play with the nail polishes and hair clips that she brought especially for Thea’s entertainment. When school called her to go back, she’d graduated MIT early by completing her final assignments online, and that freed up her time to help Oliver juggle the legal battle to keep Thea with picking her up from school and generally helping her to be a happy child again.

Oh, he totally fell in love with her too. That was to be expected.

It had started when the money ran out. Oliver didn’t have a job, and didn’t have access to the trust fund, but he did have the house. It had been a hard decision, but he’d had to sell their family house. Thea had cried, refusing to leave her bedroom when the day came to leave, but while they were trying to find a house that was close enough to Thea’s school, they had temporarily moved into the apartment that Felicity was renting.

It was only a two-bed apartment, so Oliver started by sleeping on the couch to allow Thea to have her own bedroom, even if it was considerably smaller than what she was used to. It hadn’t lasted longer than two weeks in that arrangement, however, because he was significantly taller than the couch was long, and eventually Felicity had taken pity on him and reminded him that it was entirely fine for friends to share a bed. The next morning he’d woken up with his arms engulfing her completely and her body pressed against his. And the next morning. And the next morning. And a week later he realised that somewhere during his grief he had completely fallen for her grumpy morning moods, her coffee addiction and the way she made his little sister smile.

Thea usually had a horrific habit at weekends of deciding to wake them up by jumping on the bed. He wasn’t sure whether or not she knew about him and Felicity, but she’d never said anything about it and he hadn’t wanted to spring another change on her life just yet. If he got to fall into bed and curl up to a girl who made him very, very happy, it didn’t affect his sister in any way.

He leaned across the bed, and pressed a sleepy kiss to the top of her head. She merely grumbled in response, rolling over without waking up. She was terrible at coping with mornings - that part of her had definitely retained the student lifestyle. Oliver, on the other hand, usually rose with a sun. When they lived with Felicity, it meant he had the opportunity to get up and go outside for a run before he started on the ever-looming task of learning how to be a responsible adult.  That hadn’t changed even though they’d resolved the legal issue last month.

Technically, Thea was his daughter now.

They’d filed for an official order of adoption, when it looked like the act of guardianship was going to be challenged. It had taken a long time to explain to Thea that just because it was an adoption, it didn’t mean Oliver was her father now, he was still her brother, but she’d just looked confused and continued playing dress up with some of Felicity’s outfits.

He decided to let Felicity sleep a while longer, and slipped out of the bed. He didn’t need to move carefully because it took nothing short of a jumping child or an alarm clock to wake this girl up. He snuck into the next room, but rather than finding Thea sleeping, she was sat on the floor playing with a wide selection of dolls. She was talking to herself, or so he thought until he realised that he was giving her dolls voices. He’d never understood that, but sometimes Felicity joined in with her and she seemed to be pretty good at it.

“Hey, Speedy,” he whispered loudly into the bedroom. “You’re up early.”

At his voice, she looked up and with a bright smile. That smile always made him feel better. “Not tired no more,” she said simply.

“Want some breakfast?” he asked.

“Yeah!” she said, much louder as her excitement grew.

“Shh!” Oliver said quickly, pressing his finger to his lips. “Felicity’s still asleep. We don’t want to wake her up.”

“She’s real grumpy in the mornings,” Thea acknowledged as they made their way to the kitchen.

“I know,” Oliver said in a devious tone. “So how about we make some breakfast, then if you wake her up she’s a bit less likely to eat you up.”

–

Thea loved spending time in Felicity’s kitchen. It was the most colourful place in the small apartment, and even the utensils were multicoloured kitsch sets that seemed to match nothing and everything at the same time. Thea had brought two of her dolls out into the kitchen and was playing with them at the small kitchen table for a while as Oliver started to make some bacon and eggs for them.

“Ollie, are we gonna live here forever now?” Thea asked suddenly, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Just for a while,” he explained. “We’ll move to our own place soon as we find somewhere.”

“Why do we have to go somewhere else?”

“Because we can’t go back to our old house, remember? We’re going to find a new one that’s close to your school and your friends, and that will be much better, won’t it?”

He turned to see her reaction, but she didn’t look convinced. “I guess,” she shrugged.

As the bacon sizzled behind him, he placed his hand on the back of the chair. “It’ll be great,” he assured her. “We’ll have a back yard still, so everything we had to put in storage we can get back, and it’ll be our own home. You can have a bigger room and have more of your toys back.”

“But I like this house,” she said decisively.

He gave her an awkward smile. “This isn’t our house, Thea, this is Felicity’s home.”

“But she let us stay here, and I have my own room here,” she pointed out.

“And that was a very kind thing for her to do, but that doesn’t mean we can live here forever. We do need to find our own house.”

“But then we won’t have Felicity with us all the time,” she said, her face falling.

Oliver reached back to turn the heat down on the eggs, and moved into the chair next to where his sister sat. “Is that what this is about?” he asked her. “You want to carry on living with Felicity?”

“Do you like Felicity?” Thea asked him.

“Of course, I like Felicity,” he smiled at her. “She’s my best friend.”

“How much do you like her?” she pressed.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” she said, as if it were the most important of all.

“I like her a lot,” he surrendered instantly.

“Are you going to get married?”

Oliver was floored by that question. Obviously his sister was more perceptive than he gave her credit for, but she still wasn’t aware enough to see the whole picture. “Why do you ask that?” he asked calmly, even though his heart started pounding in his chest at the idea.

“Because Dana at my school has two moms. She lives with one mom on school days and she has a new mom who lives with her daddy when it’s the weekend,” she explained.

Oliver wasn’t entirely sure how to explain the difference between dead parents and the step-mother situation, but he managed to at least appear more in control of the situation than he felt. “Then Dana’s very lucky to have two moms that love her,” he said.

“But if I live with Felicity on school days and on weekends, and she takes me to school and makes my dinner sometimes, does that mean she’s my new mom?”

He got up from the chair and then turned the stove off completely, even though it wasted the half-cooked eggs and bacon. He crouched down beside Thea’s chair, making sure that he had her full attention before he spoke. She’d developed a horrible habit of hiding behind her hair to avoid serious conversations and she was trying it now, afraid that she’d gotten into trouble by asking it. “Thea,” he said quietly, turning her in the chair to face him. “Mom’s still your mom. Dad’s still your dad. Just because they aren’t here any more, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a mom and dad any more. Felicity’s a very good friend to us and she cares about us a lot, but she isn’t a mom.”

“But you adopted me,” she said pointedly. “You said that means you’re a brother and a dad now. Why can’t she be my friend and a mom?””

Oliver sighed, running his hand over his face before he looked up at her small face. She wasn’t looking at a toy store window, batting her eyes with an ‘Ollie, pleeease’. She was asking for something much more of him, the one thing he wasn’t entirely sure he could give her right now. “I know you miss mom…”

“But we have Felicity now. She takes care of us.”

“Yeah, we do,” he nodded.

“Why can’t Felicity be my sort-of-mom?” she asked.

“Thea…”

“I love her and you love her too and she loves us,” she told him quickly. “Why can’t she?”

Oliver shook his head softly. “It’s not that simple, Speedy.”

“Maybe if you married her it would be.”

Oliver was stunned for a moment, especially at the show of determination that rarely graced her these days. Her stubborn expression was settled on her face, and he knew that look; she’d made up her mind. “Thea, this isn’t about what we want,” he explained to her. “It’s about Felicity too.”

“So Felicity doesn’t want to be a mom?”

“Isn’t it enough that we have Felicity close to us every day?” he asked her hopefully. “We’re very lucky to have someone as nice and kind as Felicity is to be our friend.”

“I don’t want her to be my friend,” she decided. “I want her to be more.”

“That’s not something we can decide,” he told her. “This is something we’ll have to talk and have a long think about.”

Thea huffed. “No talking,” she complained. “Can’t you just smile and use magic instead?”

He wanted to hunt down Walt Disney for giving her unrealistic expectations about decision making. “I’ll tell you what,” he suggested. “Why don’t I talk to Felicity about it?”

Thea grumbled, but returned to the table and the dolls once again, this time with less enthusiasm. Oliver watched her for a few seconds before accepting that he’d lost her attention and returned to the breakfast - settling for toast this time. All of a sudden his very little sister was asking some very grown up questions, which was a problem, because Oliver wasn’t really much of a grown up. It was a scary idea, considering he’d only just set out on a relationship with Felicity, and after only a few months of being able to call her his own, Thea was wanting in on that action as well.

Felicity came out and joined them a while later, still in her pyjamas, and she came up beside Oliver at the counter to pour herself a coffee. They had their usual mumbled good mornings to account for her reactions to morning, and then she raised an interest eyebrow. “Breakfast?” she asked.

“Yeah, you hungry?”

Her surprise disappeared and gave way to a longing smile. “Starving.”

“Take a seat,” he nodded his head back to the table. “It’s almost done.”

She sat down, balancing her coffee mug in one hand so the other hand could immediately join in Thea’s doll game, when Thea put her doll down and fixed her with a firm expression.  "I made a de-sih-shun,“ she said slowly.

“Thea,” Oliver cut in quickly, his tone serious as he poured his own mug of coffee. "Remember what we talked about.”

Thea tilted her head onto one side. “Say the long word slowly and it gets easy?”

“Thea,” he warned again.

“I’m a big girl, Ollie,” she said. “I’m seven years old now, so I gotta make big girl de-sih-shuns,” she told him, sounding out the longer word slowly.

“What’s the big decision?” Felicity asked her.

Thea puffed out her chest. "I decided I want-”

“Thea,” Oliver interrupted. “I said I would talk to her, didn’t I?”

She pouted at him. “But you won’t do it right!” she whined.

“Thea-”

“You wait aaaaages to talk to her!” Thea cut him off. “Tommy says you alway wait too long with Felicity. If I don’t ask her now someone else might ask her instead!” Oliver was a little stunned at her attitude, but instantly knew he needed to have a serious conversation with Tommy. In his distraction, Thea turned to Felicity and said very professionally, “Will you be my sort-of-mom?”

The coffee that had been halfway down Felicity’s throat got caught, and she choked on not just the question. “Thea!”

“Ollie!” she shouted back, not to be challenged.

Felicity recovered from her minor coffee-drowning incident and tried to hide her shock, something she wasn’t doing a very good job of. “Thea, that’s very sweet…”

“Will you?” she asked. “Because you do all the mom things for me now and Ollie does all the day things and Dana at school has two moms so I think-”

Oliver sat down at the table, a pile of toast untouched as he sat down opposite Felicity. “Thea, I told you this wasn’t as easy as that.”

“Why not?”

“It just isn’t.”

“But you said we were still a family!”

“Yes, we are, but-”

“Why can’t Felicity be in our family?”

“She is, but-”

“If she’s in our family then she’s gotta be someone,” Thea said emotionally. “You gotta have a dad and a mom and the kids. We don’t have a mom for our new family, Ollie. We need her for our family.”

It was Felicity that took charge when Oliver was floored by the emotion of his sister. She placed her hand over the one that Thea had slammed down on the table in her outburst. “Every family is different,” she explained. “Not everyone has a mom and a dad at the same time, some families are smaller. I never got to live with my dad, so I only have a mom.”

“But I…I want this,” Thea insisted, her voice breaking as if she might cry.

“Speedy, why don’t you go watch TV for a while?” Oliver suggested in a tight voice. “I need to talk to Felicity.”

She slipped away from the table, heading away with a huff that could have rivalled a teenager. When they safely heard the sound of the television, Oliver sighed. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, reaching across the table and putting his hand next to hers.

“Oliver-”

“If it’s any consolation, she kinda hit me with it out of the blue as well.”

“I thought she might have,” she said with a nervous smile. “Look, this was always going to happen,” she pointed out. “She’s a little girl. She misses her mom, and now she’s watching her brother try to be a parent and I’m just…here.”

Oliver struggled for the words to say, and she placed her mug down to take both his hands. She smiled at him, not the biggest smile she had, but one that made him feel warmer inside all the same.

“I adore Thea, Oliver. I adore you too. I didn’t have the family life that she clearly wants, but this thing we’ve got going here? It’s not the worst thing in the world, right? Thea’s happy. You’re settled. I’m…I like having you both here,” she admitted with a bashful shrug. “It might not be a conventional family, but it’s kinda a family of its own.”

“I wouldn’t want it to be with anyone else,” Oliver said quietly. “You’re…you know what you mean to me, Felicity.”

Her smile brightened at that. “I do,” she nodded. “But this is a decision you have to make. You’re responsible for her now, and this is a choice you have to make, to bring someone into her life that permanently. I’d understand if-”

“If I was to maybe side with Thea’s suggestion?” he finished for her.

“You understand what that means, right?” she asked him.

He nodded, keeping his eyes on hers, fixing her with an intense stare that sent shivers down her spine. “Yeah, I do.”

“This is a huge thing, Oliver-”

“No bigger than the decision I made to let myself be happy,” he reminded her, focusing down at their hands now. “You make me happy. You make Thea happy.” He nodded firmly. “We want to make you happy too.”

“Okay,” she said, releasing a long breath, biting down on her lip as she held back a small laugh. “I…don’t really know what to do right now,” she confessed.

Oliver breathed out his laughter, releasing her hand and handing her a piece of toast. “Me neither, but I think sneaking breakfast before Speedy demolishes it all is a good start.”


	3. Ollie vs. Goth Barbie [College AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Hi, since you’re taking requests, maybe you could write something where gothlicity meets billionaire playboy Oliver? I think it would be really interesting. Loving your fics!!!

Felicity hated Friday nights on campus with a passion.

She didn’t dislike them, didn’t have a distaste them. She had a deep, unsettling loathing for them.

She would much rather be back in her dorm room with her computer, but computers needed upgrading and upgrades cost money and money only came from working, so work she must. It landed her with a waitressing job at an upscale bar, one that required her to tie her hair back apart from her bangs and take out her piercings, but she kept her fashion habits as much as she could. No one had complained yet.

It wasn’t bad, as jobs went. They let her work the shifts she wanted, and she’d always bring in a lot of tips that she got to keep, but Friday nights were the worst - Friday nights were when all the out of town students came in and brought friends from nearby and she hated it.

She got groped, leered at, catcalled, and she wasn’t allowed to react or start a scene, so she could only glare, or flash a smile and hope they tipped extra. Usually they did.

Tonight she wasn’t in the mood.

She slammed the tray of empty glasses down on the bar where they were taken by the bartender, Josh, a boy she knew through Cooper. “Icy,” he commented on her glare, giving her a sympathetic look. “Crowd that bad?”

“Worse,” she grumbled. “Any chance of an early finish?”

“No chance,” he shook his head. “Table in the corner’s barely getting started,” he nudged his head to the back where a group of senior-looking students she didn’t recognise at all were on their fourth round of shots - and none worse for wear than they’d been when they arrived. One of them raised their hand for another round, and Felicity groaned. “You’re up, Lis,” Josh said, preparing another round and placing the glasses on her tray.

“Wonderful,” she mumbled.

“Smile, they look loose with their wallets,” he winked at her as she walked away from him.

Felicity made her way to the group with the tray above her head when she had to work through the crowd - she was usually clumsy but the situation didn’t give her much of an alternative. Then placed it down at the table and started handing out the shots.

“Whoa there, Goth Barbie, we asked for tequila,” declared a dark-haired man not all that much taller than her.

“‘Fraid not, Daddy Issues Ken,” she teased back with a smug grin. “You signalled ‘same again’, which means more sambuca.”

“Who-hoa!” came the amused dig from around the table, one sandy-haired man with remarkably good facial hair for a student clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “She got you good, Tommy.”

“Shut up, Ollie,” he muttered. “I’m try’na score here.”

Felicity made an unimpressed face. “FYI, starting with ‘goth barbie’ and telling me I’m doing my job wrong - not a good start,” she announced.

“Really? ‘Tommy’ asked, leering in at her with one arm propping him on the table. “So how would I get a good start in?”

She was saved from shooting him down by his friend Ollie pushing him away. “Leave the girl alone, Tommy.” She was about to give him a word of thanks until she saw him rake his eyes down her body and oh, hell no. “Sorry about him, he can be terrible sometimes,” he said with fake emotion.

“I see a lot of that around here,” she said bluntly, as she picked up her tray and made to leave.

He shot out an arm to stop her. “So, I take it Goth Barbie isn’t your real name?”

Wow, he really wasn’t subtle, was he? “No, it’s not,” she said simply, trying to move past him again.

“Is it something as intriguing as the rest of you?”

She took a breath and pushed him away. “Look, ‘Ollie’, if we can assume he got your name right, that is…let me guess - you’re up for the weekend, planning on taking someone home and hey, why not swoop in with the knight in shining armour trick after your friend goes with the very-uncharming approach? There will be compliments, and some flirting, and you think it’ll be super easy to get me in bed.”

“I do have some tricks up my sleeve,” he said, with no means of denial.

“Nice try,” she shot him down quickly, shaking her head and walking away.

He looked confused and followed her back through the bar. “Wait, so…you’re not interested?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“…in me?”

“Did I not make that clear?”

“But-”

“Stop it!” she turned around and pressed the tray into her stomach. “I have been awake for thirty-six hours, I have two projects due on Monday morning and three more weekend shifts to survive. I just want to do my job, get my tips and go back to my computer so I can get away from sleezeball jerks like you thinking they’ll get a tongue down their throat for a few extra tips. If you want service like that, I suggest you go elsewhere, but I am one-hundred-perfect not interested in this. At all,” she said, pressing against his chest which was wow, solid.

He stared at her bluntly. “I…”

“Shocking, right?” she poked his chest and stepped back. “Try hitting on the girls who don’t have boyfriends, Ollie.”


	4. When We're Thirty [High School AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> l-i-v-e-u-r-l-i-f-e1 said:
> 
> Olicity prompt; olicity is in high school

Felicity’s favourite time of day was the walk home from school, especially on days like today when the rain had dissipated into a far brighter afternoon. Her mom wouldn’t be home from work for a few hours, so she wasn’t planning on going home any time soon. As soon as they left the school gates, she felt a shoulder knock into hers and an enquiring grin appear at her side. “So? Was that as bad as you thought it’d be?”

Oliver Queen was her high school surprise. When she looked back on her school days, he would be the part she’d never seen coming. He was a senior, like her, but he was from an entirely different crowd. He was popular, she wasn’t. He liked sports, she didn’t. He was terrible in most subjects, she wasn’t. They were complete polar opposites in every academic way, but somehow, as friends, they worked. It had started as sophomore year study partners, and ended with most of their free time spent together.

She gave a thoughtful face to his question. “Besides a lot of people telling me that they were sorry about what Cooper did, I guess not,” she said with a small shrug.

“See, I told you it’d be fine,” he said, knocking his arm against hers as they cut through the school field to avoid the younger students holding up their walk. He had told her that it would be fine, but he wasn’t being smug about it. He’d been the first person she’d called when she found out Cooper was cheating on her, and he’d been straight round to her mom’s house with ice cream and action movies.

“Could have gone better though,” she pointed out, recalling the moment Cooper had sneered at her in the halls.

“Could have gone worse,” he said, trying to bring some optimism to the conversation. “At least you’re smiling.”

She couldn’t suppress the grin that only grew at his words. “So, after that home room session this morning, what are your thoughts on the college thing?” she asked.

He wrinkled up his face in response, his default reaction to the word college. “I can’t believe we have to apply now,” he complained. “I don’t know what I want to do with my life.”

“You can always change your mind,” she pointed out.

“True, but I haven’t got it all figured out like you have, Little Miss M.I.T.”

“If I go,” she added.

“Felicity, will you stop worrying about getting into college,” he told her with an incredulous laugh. “You’re getting straight A’s in every subject, of course you’re going to go.”

“It’s not that…” she told him.

“Then what are you worrying about?” he asked her.

She bit her lip, waiting a few moments before she stammered out her response. “Maybe it’s just not the right time to pack up and leave, you know? My mom would be all alone here, and I know she tries to pretend she’s doing okay without Dad, but I really don’t think she is and I-”

“Felicity,” he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, the two of them no longer walking across the playing field. “I know you’re worried about your mom, but you can’t pass up this opportunity.”

“Well, what about you? You’re passing it up if you don’t go to college.”

He shrugged his response as they started to walk away. “It’s not about college for me. I just want to get out of Starling City, start somewhere new, you know?”

“You can still do that without college,” she agreed.

“I could just move anywhere,” he nodded, and he hesitated on a few words then cleared his throat. “Say, I’ve got a crazy idea…”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that,” she snorted.

“Why don’t I go with you to Boston?” he suggested.

Her eyebrows raised. “Come with me?”

“Yeah, why not?” he shrugged.

“Because I’ll be living in a dorm,” she pointed out. “What are you going to do, sleep under my bed? Live off of stolen food scraps?” she laughed.

“No, not like that,” he rolled his eyes. “I mean, you wouldn’t have to live in the dorms. We could get a place out there. Be roommates.”

She gave him a look of shock, her ponytail swinging as she turned to him so quickly. “Oliver Queen, are you asking me to move in with you?” she asked, acting touched and pretending to get teary as she put her hand over her heart.

“Are you saying yes?” he asked.

“Are you serious right now?” she laughed back.

“If you say yes, I’m serious. If you say no, I’m joking,” he smirked.

She looked at him for a moment, then smiled and turned back to the path ahead of them, shaking her head. “I must be going crazy.”

“So that’s a yes?” he asked with a hint of amazement. “Whoa, I didn’t think you’d actually say yes.”

“Why ask me then?” she chuckled.

“Not sure. Hope?”

“So you were hoping that I’d move in with you?” she challenged him.

Realising he’d talked himself into a corner, Oliver shrugged. “Well, if I had to pick anyone to be my roommate, you’d a pretty good voice,” he said. “You don’t play crazy death metal music, you’re tidy and you seem like you’d be better at household finances than I would be.”

“One condition,” she said, holding up a hand. “You’re doing all the cooking.”

“Yeah, not arguing with that,” he joked, and she thumped him on the arm lightly. “You can’t tell Tommy about this though,” he told her seriously.

“Why will he be jealous you picked me over him?”

“No, he’ll start asking me when I’m proposing to you,” he said simply.

“Good point,” she smirked. “So, when are you going to propose to me?”

This time, his rose to the challenge. “I’ll make you a deal. If we’re single when we’re thirty, I’ll propose to you.”

“Thirty?” she looked at him. “Don’t most people make that arrangement when they’re forty?”

“Yeah, but we’re doing it for thirty.”

“Why?”

“Because if I’m going to marry you, then I want to give it time to be a good marraige, and I want it to last,” he explained. “I mean, not that you can’t do that at forty, but hey, an extra ten years, who’s going to turn that down?”

Felicity threw her head back and laughed. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’d been planning this for a while.”

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” he shot back at her, then grinned when they caught each other’s eye. “Besides, I don’t want kids when I’m forty,” he wrinkled his nose. “I won’t be able to run around and play with them if I’m old.”

“Forty isn’t old, you know,” she pointed out to him. “And anyway, didn’t you say that breeding with me would be dangerous because the kid would never sit still and would talk too much and use the puppy dog eyes against you?”

“Clearly you hypnotised me with that freaking ponytail,” he muttered, but smirked at her all the same.

“And you’re sure I can’t tell Tommy about this?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because you owe me a Mario Kart rematch,” he reminded her, and started jogging ahead. “Race you!”


	5. Always [High School AU Pt2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sportssqueen said: Could you pretty please do a follow up to “When We’re Thirty”!!! Like when they are actually 30 or them being in college and having that convo again?!?
> 
> devanrlanier said: Prompt. oliver goes with felicity to her high school reunion. Rubs how much he loves his girl in the mean girls face. Love your work.
> 
> Anonymous said: What about the first time Felicity says she wants to have kids one day
> 
> Sequel to When We’re Thirty

“Did you see her?”

“Never mind her, did you see who she came with?”

“She’s punching well above her weight there. I mean, he’s Oliver Queen for god’s sake.”

“She’s still wearing those dork glasses.”

“She probably only got those god-awful braces off yesterday.”

Oliver gripped his glass so tightly it almost cracked.

Neither he nor Felicity had wanted to travel back to Starling for the high school reunion that they’d been invited to, but Tommy had talked them into it and it turned out they wouldn’t deny Tommy any opportunity for a party. They’d booked a hotel for the night (a room each, of course) and got the early train back to Starling City that morning, only stopping for enough time to get showered and changed before they headed to the school they used to attend.

And they’d been there for about an hour before they remember why they didn’t want to come.

“Careful, buddy. Don’t want to get us thrown out,” Tommy said, nodding to the glass in danger of shattering in his hand.

Oliver huffed, swinging back the rest of his drink. “Where’s Felicity?” he asked gruffly.

“Bathroom,” Tommy shrugged. “Good thing too, she doesn’t need to hear this crap.”

Together, they glared at the gathering of girls at the other end of the bar. “They shouldn’t be saying it in the first place,” Oliver muttered.

“Not everyone changes after high school,” Tommy agreed.

“I’m going to say something,” he insisted.

Tommy shook his head quickly. “No, Oliver-”

“They’re insulting her!” he argued.

“Isn’t defending Felicity’s honour a boyfriend’s job?” Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Or are you still doing the ‘just roommates’ thing?”

They were. They’d been sharing an apartment since Felicity went off to M.I.T, and ten years later, there hadn’t been a right time for one of them to move out. After she graduated, she was offered an internship in the same city that had lead to a job, and they were still in the two-bed flat they’d first moved into when Oliver’s bar job had supported them both through her studies. After that, she’d helped him study for his sports therapy degree, hours of working through the night and they could now proudly say that Oliver Queen had graduated college. Oliver invested some of his savings in her company as a start-up loan. They dated people. Never more than few weeks at a time. They lived together, came home to each other, had a chores rota, always argued over who had to take the trash out.

It worked. It worked, because there wasn’t any pressure to get married to someone or have children with someone, because that wasn’t what she wanted. She was very firm on the matter that she didn’t want to end up being left like her mother did.

“I’m not her boyfriend, Tommy,” Oliver told him.

“But you want to be, right?”

At that moment, Felicity walked back into the room, and Oliver’s heart leapt into his chest. He’d seen this girl when she was fourteen with pimples, sixteen with braces and frizzy hair, nineteen with bags under her eyes from studying, twenty with her masters degree and shining eyes, twenty-two with panda pyjamas, twenty-five with sudden maturity, and now she was there, at their ten year high school reunion, his best friend for longer than he could remember, and she was wearing a dress she managed to buy off the bargain rack that had once cost three hundred dollars…when it was in season.

But the dress clung to her, flattering the body that Oliver had watched mature from a skinny girl in oversized sweaters to a beautiful young woman with curves who held his heart.

“Yeah,” Oliver choked, as she spotted them and made her way over.

Tommy, for all his insistence that the two were made for each other, said nothing as Felicity made her way to their side. Four steps before she reached them there was an overwhelming giggle from the end of the bar, and her face fell when she realised they were talking about her. Seeing her face flicker from happy to hurt in the space of a second made his blood boil, and he leaned across the bar to attract their attention.

“Say, ladies. What have you all done the last five years?”

They looked at him in silence, his face not asking them in a matter of interest.

“Let me guess, a couple of weddings, fancy cars, rich husbands, annoying children?”

They respond with more silence, and he loops his arm around Felicity’s unwilling waist, bringing her embarassed form closer to him as she tried to hide herself from them by ducking behind Tommy.

“This woman right here owns her own business. She built it from the ground. She makes more money in a month than you’d make in a year with your high school diplomas, and she’s earned every cent of it. And more than you, she got out of here and made a damn good life for herself. She has a great career, she’s the smartest woman you’d ever know, she’s beautiful even when the make-up comes off, which I’m sure you can’t say for yourselves. She is funny and smart and perfect and she is far more loved than you could ever wish to be. So you ladies enjoy your gossiping, but you can do us all a favour and not direct it at the the woman I love.”

The ten-foot radius around them went silent.

Tommy’s glass dropped to the bar, rolled off the edge and shattered as it hit the ground.

Felicity stopped breathing.

Oliver’s heart stopped beating.

The woman all turned away with a scoff.

Tommy cleared his throat. “Oliver…”

He shook himself. “Tell me I said all that in my head.”

“Sorry, buddy. You definitely just declared your love to Felicity,” Tommy grinned smugly, looking at the deer-in-the-headlights expression on Felicity’s face. “And I think there’s a chance she might have heard.”

“No,” Oliver mumbled, shaking his head. “No, I was quiet…”

“Oliver, she is three inches away from you,” Tommy pointed out. “And you kinda yelled it.”

“No-”

“I heard,” Felicity said in a tiny voice.

She pulled away from his side, and he felt his life slipping away from him. Every step away from him after she detangled herself from his messy embrace was another year of their friendship that he’d just thrown away in some ridiculous attempt to defend her honour. His shoulders sagged, and he was about to turn back to the bar and drink his bad decision into oblivion when he felt a tiny hand encase his, and his eyes snapped open again.

Felicity was there, gripping his hand as she looked at Tommy, kissing his cheek. “It’s been great to see you, Tommy. You need to come up to Boston soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Tommy muttered in confusion.

“Come on,” she said, tugging on Oliver’s hand. “Take me back to the hotel.”

–

They walk back to the hotel in silence, it’s not far, and in true party fashion, when her heels start to hurt her he leant down for her and carried her on his back the rest of the way to the hotel. It was easy to ignore the stares in the hotel lobby, but he set her down in the elevator. The nerves twisted in his stomach, because he expected her to leave his side any second, and any words that he said might make her leave faster.

But she took hold of his hand and lead him into her hotel room, and he didn’t look twice at his own door before he followed her in. The room was still dark, lit dimly by the city lights that streamed through the open curtains, but he didn’t need to see her because the moment the door closed behind him she was in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his torso, pressing herself against him in that way only she could embrace him.

“Oliver…”

“I’m not sorry,” he said firmly, as his arms tightened around her, holding her too him in case he’d messed up and lost her.

“Did you mean it, or did you just say it to stop the gossiping?” she asked him.

“Both,” he answered in a small voice.

“How long?”

“Felicity…”

“How long have you loved me?” she asked, and he wanted to answer but her face was buried beneath the knot of his tie and he couldn’t.

Reaching one hand up, he distanced himself just enough that he could tilt her chin up, so that he could see her closed eyes, and the purple eyeshadow he hadn’t noticed earlier. She didn’t open her eyes, not even when he leaned down and brushed his lips over hers, once softy, twice with a bit more firmness, but all with everything he’d been feeling since he was old enough to understand what emotions she inspired in him.

“I’ve always loved you,” he whispered against her lips, and when she leant in for another kiss, he sighed against her parted lips. “I’ve loved you since I first met you, and I never stopped…All I ever wanted was you, but you’re my best friend, and I just want…everything with you. I know you don’t want that though.”

At that confession, she pulled her head back. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t want a family, you said it a thousand times,” he sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. “I get it. I do. I know you’re worried someone will leave you like your Dad did, and that you’ll be alone, so I…understand.”

“I do want that,” she whispered.

“You do?”

“I…” she bit her lip, closing her eyes again. “I didn’t want you to think I wanted it with someone else.”

“Why?” he asked, his chest feeling tighter.

Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him with a deep breath. “Because I only ever wanted a life with you.”

His heart started to beat a little faster, his hands coming up to frame her face. “Felicity…”

“I wanted all of it,” she repeated. “I wanted the house, the kids, the wedding…but only if you were the endgame.”

And then he kissed her properly, like he’d been wanting to do his whole life.

–

The following March, Tommy finally made the trip out to Boston, with a suit in a flat-pack case and a piece of paper folded in his hands.

_You are cordially invited to the wedding of Oliver Jonas Queen and Felicity Meghan Smoak…_


	6. I See It Now [Exes AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aussieforgood answered you:Oliver cheats on Felicity. *nervously hovers over answer privately….to send or not to send*
> 
> Note: Yeah, I couldn’t be too evil. Except I could.

He couldn’t avoid her forever. She was everywhere. She was a presence in the city as much as he was, and he knew when he’d come back to Starling City with his campaign for Mayor that he’d eventually have to see the Vice President of Palmer Technologies.

Streams of people arrived at the fundraiser, and he found himself wondering if she’d even come. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask his assistant if she’d accepted the invitation, too concerned with public image and really, did he have any right to ask about her?

And then there she was.

Right there.

He knew she’d come.

He hadn’t seen Felicity Smoak since they parted ways ten years ago. He’d fallen for her instantly, the blonde-haired dream in the middle of the nightmare that was his early twenties. But as much as he’d tried to do good by her, he’d fallen into old habits (and old beds) and he’d cheated on her - the one thing he swore he’d never do. To make matters worse, he’d cheated on her with his ex, Laurel, who she’d always seen as his toxic spiral and she’d walked out of his life and never come back into it.

But now she was there. And she was not alone.

Just as he’d thought, the Vice President couldn’t possible be seen without the CEO himself, and when Ray Palmer walked through the door, Felicity was just a step behind him, another arrival cradled on Ray’s hip, and it was that moment that Oliver really gave up on her.

Even when he’d heard the rumours of their relationship, he hadn’t believed them. Something inside of him always fought the idea of Ray and Felicity settling down together, because he always thought he could offer her better than Ray - even when he’d failed spectacularly at proving that to her. He still loved her. He didn’t want to, he tried to tell himself that he didn’t deserve to love someone as perfect as her, but when the three entered the room he felt his heart shattering to pieces and that he had truly loved and lost.

He had lost his chance with her a long time ago. Too many mistakes. Too many lies. Too much betrayal. There were no second chances for him when he’d already been exhausting his tenth, and as a result he’d never really gotten close enough to see what Ray got to see every day.

From across the room he watched them, trying to distract himself with speaking to his other investors, but she captivated his attention no matter where she was in the room. When he saw Ray shake someone’s hand he noticed there was no wedding band, but there was something shining on Felicity’s left hand. They were obviously getting around to the wedding.

But it was the baby that caught his eye.

The downsides of these community fundraisers were that people felt compelled to bring their children, and this one in particular couldn’t be more than six months old - just old enough for him to see that she looked exactly like her mother. They’d dressed her in a white lace dress, not too girly, as classy and elegant as her mother. She reared her head, looking around the mass of people that didn’t seem all that strange to her, and when someone close to him moved, a baby version of Felicity’s eyes met his.

Felicity cooed over her child, and noticing her daughter’s intense look she followed her gaze, catching Oliver’s eyes. To his surprise, she smiled at him and whispered something to Ray. He handed her the baby and she made her way towards Oliver. He stood up as she approached, apprehension in his stomach as he walked to meet her halfway.

“I was wondering whether we’d be seeing any Palmer Tech representatives this evening,” he said, nudging his head towards the clock that showed they were over an hour late. “I thought punctuality was my downfall, not yours.”

“We lost track of time,” she said innocently. “Congratulations on the campaign.”

“Thank you,” he nodded.

She looked beautiful. The top half of her blonde hair was gathered up, but the lower layers were hanging over her shoulders, slightly curled at the bottoms. She had some subtle make up on her eyes, but her lips were painted bright red to match her dress. He’d missed that brightness. The dress clung to her in all the right places, accentuating the curves that the child in her arms had obviously contributed to.

She looked happy.

“You look amazing,” he complimented quietly.

“Not so bad yourself,” she admired. “Seeing you in a suit is quite a shock, I have to say.”

“It comes with the territory,” he shrugged with a smile. He smiled at the baby in her arms, nodding towards her. “She’s beautiful,” he told her. “Congratulations to you both.”

“Thank you,” she grinned proudly as she looked at her daughter.

“What’s her name?”

“Lily,” she said, placing a kiss on the top of the baby’s head as it moved slightly and Felicity gave a small laugh. “She’s just starting to react to her own name.”

“Your first?” he asked.

Much against his hopes, she shook her head with another proud smile on her cheeks. “No, our son’s at home. He’s been sick this week so he’s at home with Ray’s mother…Damien will be four next week.”

“Damien…after your father,” he nodded, and she gave him a slightly sadder smile. “I was sorry to hear about the accident.”

“We all were,” she nodded slowly. “But he got to meet his grandson first, at least.”

Lily began to fuss in her arms, and when Felicity raised her hand to calm her, Oliver got a closer look at her engagement ring. “A wedding as well?” he asked when she didn’t say anything.

“Next month,” she told him. “August 18th. You should…”

“I’ll check my diary,” he said professionally, bringing a laugh from her. They fell into a silence after, and he knew that he wouldn’t check that diary. He couldn’t watch her marry another man. Speaking of, he caught said man’s eye over her shoulder and nodded towards him. “I think I’ve stolen your attention from your fiance quite long enough,” he commented.

“I guess so,” she smiled, and gave him a nod. “It’s good to see you again, Oliver,” she told him softly.

He watched her go, but called her back after just a few steps. “Felicity!”

She turned at her nap, moving back to him. “What?”

“I just…one thing,” he said, his hands sliding into his pockets. “Are you happy?”

She looked back at Ray, who’s smile widened at her, and then turned her gaze back to the little girl in her arms. When she turned back to Oliver at last, there was a light in her eyes that’d he’d once extinguished with his betrayal, and it was like a punch in the gut. He knew that with all his mistakes he’d never have been able to give her that contentment. Not in this lifetime. It was selfish for him to want that as well.

“Yes, I’m happy,” she smiled back at him.

Then, Oliver did the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Good,” he whispered with a guilty smile. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

He’d wondered once whether Felicity was the first woman he had ever truly loved, but if that were so then she was the only woman. He’d been too young and stupid to see that at the time, to see this wonderful woman that had adored him, loved him, committed herself to him, and he’d ruined that. He hadn’t seen the life he could have had with her.

But he could see it now.


	7. Mile High [Airport AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Olicity prompt, if you don’t mind, pretty please. I just discovered that you can buy vibrators at the airport, but while i was trying to load my bag into the overhead compartment on the plane, it fell out and landed right in your lap. how am i supposed to spend the next four hours sitting next to you and not die of embarrassment??? 

Getting the last minute flight home, and almost crying at the check in desk when they’d screwed up your ticket? Embarrassing.

Being upgraded to business class as an apology while a lot of angry people behind you groan? Horrifying.

Choosing to spend your extra delayed hour in the shopping area? Slight improvement.

Buying the vibrator and shoving it into your carry on? Necessary.

The zip on your carry-on breaking as you’re shoving it into the overhead compartment and said vibrator finding into the lap of the most attractive man you’ve ever seen?

Mortifying.

“Oh my god!” she cried in sheer horror, her face flushing red as she grabbed the plastic packaging out of the lap of the devastatingly handsome man and tried to put it back into her back before he noticed what it was.

If only.

He was unbuckling his seatbelt, crouching next to her. “Here, let me help you-”

“No!” she cried out. “No, no, really, it’s fine, I’ve got it.”

“You know I’ve already seen the worst part of it,” he chuckled. “I think I can handle anything else you might be carrying.”

She just flushed brighter red. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…I just….”

“Relax,” he told her, and set his hand over hers, calming her a second. Oh god, those eyes were inhumanly blue. “The zip broke, it happens.”

“To me, mostly,” she grumbled, finally managing to close it enough to store it in the overhead and they slumped back into the seats. She fussed mostly with her belt, anything to avoid eye contact with the gorgeous specimen she was seated beside, and looked into the aisle to try and prevent herself speaking to him and making it worse.

–

He didn’t speak to her until an hour into the flight. The attendant had brought around her drink, and he asked for a double whiskey and a vodka on the side after she declined a drink. She widened her eyes a little but didn’t say anything. He just smirked, placing the vodka on her drop down table. “Relax, this one’s for you,” he told her with a far-too-friendly smile. “You look like you need it.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, barely remembering to take a breath before she knocked it back quickly and even faster remembered why she never did that.

“So…” he cleared his throat. “I’m Oliver,” he said, waving his hand slightly.

“Felicity,” she nodded back.

“I’d ask if you were travelling for business or pleasure, but…” he broke off with a shit-eating grin as if he couldn’t contain the word and Felicity’s face began to burn again.

“Oh god,” she closed her eyes. “Look, I’ve had it since I was sixteen and I–” she saw his eyebrows shoot up and she covered her mouth with a gasp. “Not…that! The bag! I’ve had the bag since I was sixteen! It’s so raggedy and I really need to buy a new one. That wasn’t…oh my god, please stop me speaking.”

“Maybe we should talk,” he said with a shrug, thankfully holding back his laughter but she could see it in his eyes. “You did throw some pretty wild ideas out there, after all.”

“Ideas?” she asked.

“Well, I’ve had some pretty obvious come ons from girls before -” she doesn’t doubt that, look at him, he’s built like a Greek god - “but I’ve never had a girl throw a sex toy at me before.”

“Accidentally!” she insisted quickly. “I never intended to throw it at you. It was a total accident, I never…I never wanted anyone to see it, I just…” she leaned forward pressing her hands, placing her face in her palms to hide it from him.

“Spur of the moment decision?” he finished for her.

She raised up to look at him, cracking one eye open.

“I know a lot about those,” he sympathised. “Usually bad ones.”

“Have you ever had this happen to you before?” she asked.

He doesn’t even hesitate, but his smile becomes something more guilty. “I once went to take money out of my wallet to pay a waitress, and ended up handing her a condom instead.” She couldn’t help it, a laugh slipped out, but he wasn’t done. “And I was on a date at the time.”

“And how did that end for you?”

“Not well,” he laughed. “This seems to have gone much better for you though,” he observed.

“You mean that I didn’t give you a concussion?” she scoffed, shaking her head.

He went to reply but a shake from the plane interrupted them. Instinctively, they gripped each other’s hands, both with their eyes slammed shut. Neither of them enjoyed turbulence, it seemed, and when the plane steadied, they cleared their throats and backed away to their respective spaces.

–

They were silent for another forty minutes, and then Oliver cleared his throat again. “So, in the interest of being a stranger you’ll never see again, mind if I ask what exactly inspired this last-minute decision to buy a…sex toy?” he asked, pausing and lowering his voice as someone moved past them to get to the bathroom.

She was quiet for a long time, her face screwed up, but he was right - he was a stranger she was never going to see again. “My mom’s a lot to handle. I just spent Hanukkah and New Year with her harking on at me for not bringing a boyfriend home for her to meet and after two weeks with her it was either kill someone or have a night to myself with marathon orgasms,” she said bluntly.

Oliver, rather than look shocked, just gave an impressed nod. “Well, at least you chose the one you can’t get arrested for,” he reasoned.

She laughed despite her embarrassment. “I suppose so,” she agreed.

“But uh…marathon, huh?” he asked, one eyebrow raised and his eyes a little darker than she recognised before. “That’s an impressive aim for stamina.”

“I did just spend $80 on something to help with that,” she pointed out.

“Shame,” he said, and when her eyes narrowed on that it looked like he was the one with an out of control vocal range and he sucked in a breath and covered it up. “I mean…you’re a beautiful woman. I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy you’re passing over tonight just to spend time with something battery operated,” he explained.

“Well, said guy actually broke up with me before the holidays, over the phone,” she said.

Oliver winced in sympathy. “Ouch. Okay, maybe he deserves it,” he agreed.

“And I deserve a night of…”

“Marathon orgasms?” he finished for her. “Can’t deny that.”

If his eyes raked over her body as a fresh batch of drinks for them, she pretended not to notice.

–

When their flight landed a few hours later, she stood to get her bag. Oliver stood for his and grabbed her hand just as she made to leave. “Look, this might be incredibly forward for me, but…” He bounced on his heels, biting his lip.

“What?” she asked.

“I have a hotel here for the night, I’m carrying on to Coast City in the morning,” he said, wincing at how it sounded already. “If you’re still interested in a marathon, I’d be happy to help.”

“Help?” she asked with a stammer.

“You’ve clearly had a rough few weeks and I think that warrants something more than batteries can give you,” he continued. “Although if you’re really interested, those batteries are welcome to join us.”

His look was smouldering now, and she swallowed thickly, her heart pounding. “Umm…sure,” she murmured, before she really understood what she was agreeing to.

“Really?” he asked, as if he was surprised she agreed.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding firmly to confirm her decision. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”


	8. Business Class [Airport AU Pt2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> geniewithwifi said: NOOO! NOOO! I NEEED MORE OF MILE HIGH. I NEED THAT NIGHT! I NEED THE NEXT MORNING! THE NEXT MORNING!?! Where is she going? Why is he going to Coast City? WIll they meet up? I NEED ANSWERS
> 
> Anonymous said: are you gonna write a second part for mile high? that could be awesooooome
> 
> Anonymous said: Please can we have a follow up to the sex toy prompt? (Pretty please!)
> 
> pharmalen said: Prompt: “You’ve clearly had a rough few weeks and I think that warrants something more than batteries can give you,” he continued. “Although if you’re really interested, those batteries are welcome to join us.” sequel to Mile High would be great!
> 
> dilkishehnaai said: stuck in an airport because the flights were SO VERY delayed and its like two am AU! (p.s. I’ve been a silent admirer of your fics for a long time! thank you for writing them, they really make my day!)
> 
> So, by highly popular demand, here’s a sequel to Mile High

Somehow, she found herself twelve hours later with her unpacked carry-on at her feet, a bottle of water in her hands and a sexually charged man at her side.

She wasn’t sure when exactly she agreed to followed him to Coast City, but she decided it may have been some time between her fifth and sixth orgasms because she was pretty sure she blacked out then.

She wasn’t sure why it was so entertaining and arousing to watch him try and book her an extra ticket on his flight while she was still in his lap and he was still inside her.

She wasn’t sure why it wasn’t mortifying to watch him call room-service and ask for a better quality of battery to be delivered to their room.

She wasn’t sure of a lot of things.

But she was increasingly certain that going to Coast City with Oliver Queen was going to get her the following things:

  1. laid
  2. orgasms
  3. a whole lot more orgasms



And that seemed like a very good plan.

Until every flight had been delayed.

Her head dipped back against the wall they’d sat themselves against, legs outstretched and taking up far too much space considering people were actively walking around their bags but neither of them wanted to think about moving.

“So this wasn’t how I imagined it,” Oliver confessed after another tannoy announcement announced another thirty-minute delay in boarding.

“Liar,” she shot back. “I think you fully intended to be laid out on the floor feeling stiff.”

“Didn’t picture so many people around,” he shrugged in response.

She arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Well, at least I didn’t think they’d look so bored,” he pointed out.

She laughed, leaning her head back against the wall. “This is crazy,” she declared. “I’m travelling the country with a man I hardly know for sex.”

“That’s not entirely true,” he rolled his head across his shoulder to look at her. “I know a whole lot about you.”

“Like what?” she challenged.

“I know you desperately need an orgasm,” he said.

“That was something you knew yesterday,” she pointed out. “I’ve had several since.”

“You still need more.”

“Certainly not going to turn them down.”

“Orgasms make you cocky,” he said, grinning through a fake pout. “What happened to the adorable stammering blushing girl I met on the plane?”

“I think she got fucked into a hotel bed last night,” she said. “Or this morning. Wait, what time is it again?”

“Time we got to Coast City so we can have a whole lot more orgasms,” he said with a very real grumble this time.

She bit at her lip, her attention drawn to him again. “This is crazy though, isn’t it?”

“Good crazy, I hope,” he muttered, a more serious tone taking over him. Despite either of their better intentions, when he placed his hand over hers she did grip it back, a gentle squeeze that was far more intimate than something she would have expected from two people who haven’t even known each other for two full days.

“I guess we’ll see,” she agreed with a nervous inhale.

“We’ll see each other naked, that’s for sure,” he smirked.

She laughed. “Says the guy who was so impatient he almost didn’t get my skirt off.”

“I got you off though,” he added with a far-too-pleased grin.

“Multiple times,” she muttered under her breath. “Maybe this is a bad idea,” she insisted.

“You said that last night,” he reminded her, placing his hand on her thigh.

“Don’t let me ruin that important meeting,” she said, her tone lowering to something more sober. “You can’t miss it for sex.”

“On one condition,” he said, his hand creeping further up her thigh, and she was suddenly grateful for the leggings she was wearing because if it had been a skirt she was pretty sure he wouldn’t even be bothering to control himself right now.

“What’s that?” she asked with a small hint of breathlessness.

“Go to dinner with me.”

That shocked her, more than the entire hour he had spent crouching between her legs at the side of the bed with the same sex toy she’d basically thrown in his lap during their first meeting. “Dinner? Like…a date?”

“Not like a date, an actual date,” he told her.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve had more fun in the last…however long we’ve spent together…than I’ve had in years, and I’m pretty sure it’s not just the sex,” he told her with a fonder smile. “The sex is mind-blowing, of course.”

“Do you put out on a first date?” she challenged him.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Do you?”

She bit her lip, saved from answering by a tannoy announcement advising that their flight was boarding. She got to her feet, looking down at him where he was still sprawled with his feet propped up on his bag.

“I guess you’ll find out.”


	9. I'll Call You Back [Tech Support AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Dialogue fic Prompt: Zero game Oliver keeps trying to ask out the cute Blonde who works in tech support over the phone. “I need you to reboot my system.”

“Welcome to Tech Village, you’re through to Felicity, how can I be of assistance?”

“Hey, I’m um…having some trouble with my laptop.”

“Is it a Windows or a Mac?”

“…it’s a laptop.”

“Sir, I’m going to need a bit more information….”

“I’ll uh…call you back.”

—

“Welcome to Tech Village, you’re through to Felicity, how can I be of assistance?”

“I’m having trouble using the internet.”

“Okay, why don’t you open up Internet Explorer and talk me through the problem.”

“You still use Internet Explorer? You must like it nice and slow.”

“Excuse me?”

“I just…I’ll call you back.”

—

“Welcome to Tech Village, you’re through to Felicity, how can I be of assistance?”

“I’m having trouble getting my server back online.”

“Okay, when did it go down?”

“Every night, if you know what I mean.”

“Sir?”

“I’ll call you back.”

—

“Welcome to Tech Village, you’re through to Felicity, how can I be of assistance?”

“I was wondering whether you’d have an appointment time I can bring my equipment in? I’m having some installation problems?”

“What equipment are you using?”

“I’ve got a new SD card but the slot just isn’t taking it. Could you maybe show me how to fill one of your slots with my card? I mean…oh God, I’ll call you back.”

—

“Welcome to Tech Village, you’re through to Felicity, how can I be of assistance?”

“Okay, my laptop is completely swarming with-”

“A virus? You’re the fifth person to call today. There’s been a Trojan virus pushing in and a lot of people have gone down from it. First things first, I’ll need you to come down to the store so I can check out your backdoor.”

“….excuse me?”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry, that didn’t come out very professional at all. Can we start this again?”

“Sure.”

“How can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m Oliver Queen.”


	10. Skype at 7 [Online Friendship AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: Okay, guys. There’s been requests on and off for this over the past 5 weeks but since this is my 100th Olicity fanfiction; you do get something special. Now, a lot of you know my personal Oliver Queen, whom I write twitter RP with (as Olicity) and a few of you now have asked whether we are anything like Oliver and Felicity. Turns out, we freaking are. So this for you, is the Olicity AU you’ve been waiting for, and this for me, is how I met one of my best friends.

Oliver Queen comes into her life on an April afternoon with a chirp of her phone that tells her she’s got a reply to a tweet she posted a few minutes ago.

She replies, thinks nothing of it, and continues on with her lunch break.

–

Her phone chirps again.

And again.

And again.

And a week later, he’s a welcome distraction in her chaotic day.

–

Felicity Smoak works in Tech Village. She’s one of the phone consultants that has the joy of answering a thousand phone calls a day that end with the same mundane questions to fix their computers, and this is what she does with her day. She’s been there for two years, and while it’s not the most entertaining job, it puts money in her bank account and she’s sorely in need of that to fund her shoe shopping weakness, and she knows she’ll need a replacement set of glasses soon and they’re never on the cheap side.

Felicity Smoak sneaks tweets to the boy with extensive movie knowledge, and suddenly sneaking tweets becomes private messaging and suddenly her lonely nights in watching television are filled with laughter.

–

> _OQ: I’m so tired_
> 
> _FS: Can’t be as tired as I am_
> 
> _OQ: I want to sleeeeeeeeeep_
> 
> _FS: That’s a big sleeeeeep_
> 
> _OQ: That’s how bad I wanna sleep_
> 
> _FS: No, wake up!_
> 
> _OQ: NO_
> 
> _FS: If I have to be awake, so do you_

–

It becomes an addiction, a distraction from the hell of a working day. It’s like a friend in her pocket and each chirp of her phone brings a smile to her face. She learns about Oliver Queen, this mysterious man across the country who works for his father’s company and has amazing job perks. Like really, she’s seriously jealous of the perks of his job. She waits for the tweeted photos of the parties he’s at and can’t remember the last time she went to a big party like that - probably before her friends started settling down into marriages and parenthood - and she’s always turning off the lights and getting into bed when her phone chirps for the last time each night.

> _night xxx_

–

> _FS: Wait there, I need to shower._
> 
> _OQ: Hurry up, I want to watch the movie._
> 
> _FS: May or may not be singing Pitch Perfect songs in the shower._
> 
> _OQ: *creepy favouriting*_
> 
> _FS: Shower stalker. I was singing Titanium and waiting for Anna Kendrick to join me._
> 
> _OQ: She’s with me. Hurry up :P_
> 
> _FS: Well that’s just rude. Don’t start without me._
> 
> _OQ: Then hurry up!_

–

Movies in Skype become the reward of a long day at work. Skype at 7 becomes a fixed point in time, the meeting place of those who have never really crossed paths. The words ‘count back from 5’ become second nature, and they’re watching all the great movies they’ve fallen in love with. When they’ve maxed out the best comedy movies (okay, so they only watched Step Brothers a few thousand times and learned all the inside jokes and maybe they have entire conversations in quotes but that’s a totally normal thing to do) they move onto the best of the 80s movies.

After the 80s movies, Oliver freaks out because he finds out she hasn’t watched a lot of the great movies of the 90’s.

Apparently Jurassic Park doesn’t count.

Felicity totally thinks it counts.

In her defence, she spent the early nineties learning how to walk and how not to crap her pants.

–

> _FS: Okay, I found something that might fix it but I can’t talk you through it in 140 characters. I emailed it back to you!_
> 
> _OQ: OMG IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU okay going to skype_

–

The first time she fixes his computer over the internet, he thinks she’s a goddess. The next time, he doesn’t have a tantrum about Skype breaking because she’s ready with the articles because if there’s one thing Felicity Smoak doesn’t stand for it’s a broken computer.

Oliver’s computer is old. It’s slow. Felicity thinks he should consider upgrading. Sometimes she wakes up in a cold sweat to the thought that he might still be running Windows 97 and he’s too ashamed to tell her.

If he is, then he should be.

–

> _FS: Cleared out my hard drive today, laptop running so fast it’s basically brand new._
> 
> _OQ: So much room for activities!_
> 
> _FS: Well, internet only activities :P_
> 
> _OQ: Porn._

–

She emails him at work every day. All day. Then messages him all night. Sometimes they laugh. Sometimes they talk far too intensely about the TV shows they watch. They have real spiritual connections to Brody in Homeland, and when he’s no longer part of the show they stop watching. They fall in love with cocky, spitfire Damon in The Vampire Diaries. They latch onto the spin off The Originals because it’s far more death, far more brutal, far more suits and far less of the characters they dislike.

They start waking up early to watch their shows before work.

Skype at 7 applies for morning and evening.

–

> _FS: Vacation’s not as fun as I thought it’d be. I miss you._
> 
> _OQ: I miss you too._
> 
> _FS: Can I come home yet?_
> 
> _OQ: Yes, do it immediately._
> 
> _FS: Ok, I’ll start walking._
> 
> _OQ: Is it really that bad?_
> 
> _FS: Caitlin’s not as much as you are to watch movies with._

–

Visiting her old college roommates comes with the hurdle she hadn’t expected. Until now, Oliver’s been a secret she didn’t realise she was keeping, and suddenly all the girls want to know who’s making Felicity grin at her phone. Sometimes she says it’s her mother. Sometimes she lies and says it a friend who isn’t there. Sometimes she says nothing and just smiles a little more.

Truthfully, who cares? They all sit there talking about their babies, planning their wedding. Felicity used to feel bad for not wanting that, for not moving towards it, and now she doesn’t. After a whole lifetime of forward planning, she’s living for the moment, and she’s realised that she doesn’t want a relationship, doesn’t want this idea of ‘settling’ that her friends have accomplished. All she actually wants is someone to talk to, to escape from her life with, and to watch movies with.

In Oliver, she has that in spades.

So when they ask her who she’s talking to, she never tells them. He is her dirty little secret. She is his.

–

> _FS: My friends want to know why I have a devious smile on my face._
> 
> _OQ: It’s not my fault_
> 
> _FS: Yes it is. They think I’m doing something bad. They’re concerned for your safety and think I’m abusing you._
> 
> _OQ: What did you tell them?_
> 
> _FS: I told them if you beg for it then I’m not responsible for the bruises ;)_
> 
> _OQ: Haha! Tell them it’s a fine line between pain and pleasure_
> 
> _FS: Well now we know what you’re into, 50 Shades of Queen_
> 
> _OQ: Everyone likes leaving a mark_
> 
> _FS: I’d at least rub it better after._
> 
> _OQ: Really?_
> 
> _FS: Only if you asked nicely._

–

It turns out the whole saying goodbye before going on a trip is a useless thing, because there’s still a good morning and a goodnight that comes regardless, and really, what else is social media for if not sneaking messages while your family are trying to create memories three inches to the right? In a forest area, Felicity and her cousins finish a high-wire course that has her aching in places that she never realised had muscles, and the first person wants to tell about how she completely nailed the freefall jump is him.

He’s the first person she wants to tell everything to.

Later that night she sends him a video recording of some otters at the nature park, which she’s decided make the most adorable noises in the world, and asks him if they can adopt one.

They decide they’ll get five.

–

> _OQ: How’s the trip?_
> 
> _FS: Missing you millions xxx_
> 
> _OQ: No, I miss you more. xxxxx_
> 
> _FS: Miss you loads more. xxx_

–

She’s having a bad day, and she goes to him. She always does. She’s not sure what she’s feeling, but he knows what she needs to here.

OQ: When you’re feeling sad then write down how and where you were four years ago when everything went wrong, and then write down how you are now and what you have now. You’ll see the difference. Most people can’t appreciate the small things, and people are sad because all of them are waiting for the HUGE things. They can’t be happy over something small, which is sad. You can be happy over the small things, like watching a movie or a TV show, and that will make a huge difference.

Whether he’s a huge thing, or a small thing, she thinks he makes the biggest difference.

–

> _FS: How’s the party?_
> 
> _OQ: There’s a baby staring at me._
> 
> _FS: Baby stares into your soul_
> 
> _OQ: Baby will be disappointed. My soul is black and guarded by dragons._

–

Oliver Queen integrates himself into her life in ways she never imagined, as if he were as physically close as the friends she once went to school with. She considers the idea of going home to him even if it’s Skype talks and that rom-com she’s definitely going to get him to watch with her because dammit she watched The Purge which was scary as hell and this is based off her favourite book.

Sometimes it gets hard for him. She knows he carries a world on his shoulders, and she’s as patient as she can be because she remembers a time when she carried that world on her own. He worries he’s not good enough, tells her several times she deserves better than he has to offer, and that’s not something she’s sure of. Very few people in Felicity’s life have treated her as well as he did. Friends let you do shit for the sake of it, but he knows her. He knows when to let her babble, knows when to tell her to stop, knows when she needs to get her head on straight.

So she tries to be the same for him.

Because he deserves better too.

–

> _FS: Read an article today about a woman who married her two pet cats. I think that’s your future._
> 
> _OQ: Future? Present!_

–

“So, let me get this straight, you talk every day?”

Caitlin’s judging. She knows she’s judging. Felicity regrets letting Caitlin borrow her phone and finding the photo, but really, it’s a photo of Oliver holding a freaking puppy, so of course she kept it.

“Yes, we do.”

“And you’re not fucking him?”

“No!” she insists sharply. “I’ve never met him.”

“So for all you know, he’s a really old guy sitting in his pants, lining the basement with tarp ready to kidnap you and make you a slave?”

Felicity immediately reaches her phone. Caitlin’s comment makes her remember that he’s turning thirty this week, and she hasn’t sent him an ‘old’ joke in at least nineteen hours.

–

> _FS: Here, have a hot, steamy, seductive photo_
> 
> _FS sent an image: **pizza.jpg**_
> 
> _OQ: Marry me_

–

Life gets hard. Jobs get hard. Promotions come, promotions go. Opportunities are born and loss.

The good-nights and good-mornings are eternal in comparison.

–

> _FS: How’s the day off?_
> 
> _OQ: I’m still in bed_
> 
> _FS: It’s midday._
> 
> _OQ: I know, it’s great._
> 
> _FS: Little shit._

–

“You need a date.”

Felicity ignores Caitlin at first, she proves relentless. “I don’t need a date.”

“You need to go out.”

“We go out all the time,” she points out.

“You need to go out with a guy.”

“I don’t need to go out with a guy.”

“I-”

“-talk to a guy, I know, I know, Mr. Mystery Man,” Caitlin says in a mockery of her own voice, which Felicity thinks isn’t anything like her voice. “Don’t you want something more?”

Felicity wonders why she’s supposed to want something more than someone making her laugh.

–

> _OQ: Want to watch the Scream movies?_
> 
> _FS: You know I don’t like horror movies_
> 
> _OQ: They’re basically comedies. You won’t be scared._
> 
> _FS: I will._
> 
> _OQ: They’re not that bad, I promise_
> 
> _FS: You said that about the Purge 2, and what happened?_
> 
> _OQ: It wasn’t that bad!_
> 
> _FS: IT WAS HORRIBLE, WE SHOULDN’T HAVE WATCHED IT_

–

Felicity doesn’t work out much, they laugh about that sometimes. But sometimes she tries to run to prove she can (because she really should be doing something), and when the bulletin goes around at work she does something completely insane.

She signs up to run the half-marathon.

She tells Oliver that she’s an idiot, because she is, because 13.1 miles is 13.0 miles more than she can run and she really hasn’t thought this through, but it’s not for a year so she can totally do it, right?

He’s the one who messages her good luck as she runs over the starting like, the chirping tone sounds in her ears over the sound of her music kicking in.

His capital lettered congratulations when she crosses the line in 3 hours 12 minutes, in the last fifty to cross the line out of twelve-thousand people, means as much as the embraces of her family as she limps her way over the finish line, desperate for the goodie bag of energy bars that awaits her.

–

> _OQ sent an **youtube link**_
> 
> _OQ: That’s the new workout I did at crossfit today_
> 
> _FS: Stop sending me porn_

_–_

He keeps talking about the muscle up challenge and a salmon ladder. She tells him that if he completes it and shows her evidence, she’ll consider it a formal marriage proposal.

–

_FS: I can’t believe we’re watching Scream_

_OQ: Haha, you’ll be fine_

_FS: OMG Is that Drew Barrymore?_

_OQ: This is a classic movie okay!! This scene is classic too!!_

_FS: HOLY FUCK. I JUMPED. I JUMPED SO BAD._

_OQ: See, classic movie._

_FS: So is Halloween, apparently, but FYI, we are never watching those movies_

_FS: EVER_

–

Promotions come. Jobs come. He gets a manager position in the company. So does she. One by one, they’re taking over their own little words.

Life gets better.

They meet on Skype at 7.

Sometimes they watch movies. Sometimes they’ve got six or seven tv-shows on the go. They’ve got a horrible habit of dropping a show if their favourite character leaves because really, they’re not watching for the plot.

–

_OQ: Remind me to take my training bag to work with me tomorrow, I’m going to crossfit tomorrow, not Tuesday_

_FS: What would you do without me?_

_OQ: Forget the bag, probably._

–

Once the TV shows end, they retreat to youtube. They send links of favourite songs, they watch cast videos, behind-the-scenes clips, trailers, fan videos when the spoilers run dry, and they search all of the internet to bring the best parts back to each other. Between cat videos, clips of people falling over and reruns of their favourite shows, Felicity suddenly realises there isn’t a single day out of the past three and a half years that Oliver Queen hasn’t been a part of.

He’s become her best friend.

He makes her laugh. Makes her smile at her phone. Once, he made her walk straight into a lamppost because she’s too busy telling him about the latest Originals spoiler she read to pay attention to where she was going, but she doesn’t tell him that. Sometimes they’ve been mad at each other, sometimes they’ve hidden away together because there are days where other people suck and all you need is someone to bitch about the world with.

He’s been there for everything. One day she tells him that.

She fears the day he won’t be there.

She doesn’t know how to tell him that.

–

_OQ: Today we learned clean and jerks. Perfect way to hit your jaw like that guy in the youtube video if you don’t concentrate._

_FS: Yeah, don’t do that. At all._

_FS: Because if you do, and you bite your tongue like that guy did, you’ll be obligated to skype me so I can pretend I’m not laughing at you._

_FS: And I will make you say words like ‘sausages’ that will make you sound ridiculous_

_OQ: LOL. NO._

–

“Felicity Smoak?”

She turns, and the first thing he says is her name, and it changes the way she feels about her name. It rolls across his tongue like nothing she’s ever heard before, and why on Earth is she paying attention to his voice when all she’s had for the last four years is his words. She’s finally here, hair frizzy from the flight and glasses slipping off her nose in the middle of the airport and he’s…right there. She should be thinking about how wide his smile is, how blue his eyes are, how much she wants to fluff her fingers through the spikes of hair.

He approaches her, all leathers jacket and white t-shirt, and holy crap he’s actually really, really hot, and she was expecting mildly hot from the fact that he works out most days of the week, but his arms are the size of her head and she suddenly feels really, really short in the flat shoes she wore on the plane.

He holds out one of his hands, and her hand slides into his for a welcoming handshake. “Hi, I’m Oliver Queen,” he grins.

With her hand still clasped in his, he uses it to pull her in, and after four years of him being an everyday presence in her life, Felicity Smoak hugs her best friend for the first time.


	11. Rather You Than Them [Zombie AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: I want to see something involving felicity olicer and zombies. Pleeeeezzzeee
> 
> Anonymous said: I have a request from a friend. If you could tackle zombie apocalypse for olicity! Thanks.
> 
> geniewithwifi said: Prompt… Don’t hurt me. Oliver kills Felicity. On purpose.

It takes three days before the virus spreads through the city. Some make it out. Some are immune.

Oliver and Felicity are neither.

They’re trapped in the foundry, but they don’t have long. There’s a dull scratching at the door, thuds that are getting louder, and it won’t be long. They’ll be inside within the hour.

Freaking Zombies.

“Can you stop calling them that?” Oliver mumbles. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” she snaps back. “That’s what they are.”

“They’re infected. They’re still people.”

“People who want to tear our faces off.”

He can’t argue with that. There’s been a lot of face-tearing. It even frightened him. But nothing frightens him more than the idea that they’re trapped with no way out. This is the end for them. They either try to block the door up even more with what little furniture isn’t already used, survive for as long as they can on dry snacks until they starve to death or, more likely, perish from dehydration. Either that, or they try to fight their way out into a city that’s crawling with the living dead and Felicity’s right, there will be a lot of face-tearing.

They won’t survive this.

This idea makes him laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asks him, where they’re sat shoulder to shoulder against the far wall, as if the further away from the door they can get, the longer they’ll live.

“I told Digg once, years ago…that I didn’t want to die down here,” he looks around the place where they first grew together, they first fell for each other, and it’s here where they’ll meet their end.

“We are going to die, aren’t we? We’ll die, or we’ll become…” She breaks off, and he puts his arm around her.

“I’m not going to let you become one of them,” he promises, but it’s useless. If they’re caught, they’ll become one of them, simple as.

She sags her head against his shoulder, exhausted from the last three days of running and hiding and little to no rest. Then she pushes up, shaking her head in determination. “Let’s just do this.”

“Do what?” he asks, frowning at her.

“There’s still guns down here, right?”

“We don’t have enough bullets for all of them, Felicity.”

“I didn’t mean for them.”

The weight of her words chokes the room. He swears his heart misses a beat. He can’t deny he’s thought about it, taking a less painful way out, but the idea of her hurting herself is bad enough, and the thought of him hurting her? That’s almost as bad as the face-tearing.

“We have them down here, right?” she presses when he doesn’t answer.

“Yeah,” he chokes out. “But are we really going to-?”

“Would you rather do it now, on our terms, or wait for them to get to us?” she asks, gesturing to the constant thudding and moaning outside the door. “Because I don’t want to be torn apart.”

“I don’t think I can hurt you, Felicity,” he huffs, dragging his hand over his face.

“You have to,” she presses. “Because I can’t do it myself, I’ll mess it up, and you’re great at things like this.”

Things like this. Killing people.

He’s not sure what she says to convince him. Maybe it’s the way she looks at him, scared and determined in the same glance. Maybe it’s the way she pleads with him. Maybe it’s the way she looks as a human when the idea of her becoming a monster is so much worse.

So suddenly they’re entwined against the wall again, only this time she’s sat between his parted legs. His knees are drawn up and her arms drape over his thighs, gripping his knees for support as she leans back against his chest. She’s taking deep breaths, not to calm herself, but to remind herself that these are the last ones she’ll take.

They talk it out for a while, decide how it’ll be done. There’s a few rounds left, but he can’t stand the idea of looking at her body - even if that would be the greatest incentive for him to take his own life immediately after. They decide to sit like this, in each others arms one last time, and with their heads together it’ll be over in the same shot.

As they sit, he swallows. “Felicity…”

“I know,” she breathes, and when one arm presses against her chest she switches her arms, clinging to his forearm and holding it tightly against her.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks, his voice trembling.

“I’d rather it be you than them,” she nods. “I…I don’t like this. It’s scarier than the movies make it out to be, and I don’t want to go like that.” Her shaking hands grip him tighter. “I trust you. You’ll make sure I don’t feel it.”

There’s a bang at the door, and this time it rattles. Her breath hitches. “It’s okay,” he whispers into her ear, tugging her back fully against him.

“They’re going to get inside.”

“Yeah, they are.”

“I don’t want to see their faces again,” she confesses.

“You won’t,” he assures her, and his free hand reaches to the weapon he’s put at his side. “Close your eyes, Felicity.”

She doesn’t fight him. Her eyes slam shut and her breaths get quicker. He presses his forehead against the back of her skull, drawing a deep breath before he places the gun against her head. She whimpers when it actually touches her, all the determination of taking control of their breath gone when she actually feels the gun against her and god, he’s going to die hating himself.

“It won’t hurt, will it?” she checks.

“I would never hurt you,” he breathes against the back of her neck.

“This is the best thing to do right?”

“Right,” he croaks out, then his voice hitches. “I can’t believe I’m killing the woman I love.”

“At least we won’t get hold enough to poop ourselves and put each other in a home,” she tries to suggest, and they both share a laugh before the door splinters. “Oliver-”

“Close your eyes,” he repeats. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she gasps out, her fingers digging into his forearm.

“On three, okay?”

“Okay,” she whimpers.

His lips touch the back of her neck. One more time.

“One…” he sighs.

“One…” she counts with him.

“Two…”

“Tw—-”

 


	12. Things That Go Bump [NFSW]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> Can you write a smutty fic where Oliver and Felicity are neighbors and they keep masturbating to the other masturbating and know about it?

It’s not a problem until she sneezes.

She sneezes, and he hears her through the wall, and he goes silent, and the silence makes them realise exactly how much sound travels through the wall.

So she pauses with her fingers buried deep within herself, and he pauses with his hand squeezing his length, and they wait to see who makes a move first.

It’s like the chicken and the egg question all over again.

–

They pass each other in the hall the next day. He smirks when he sees the top of her grocery bag. Two pints of ice cream and a bottle of wine.

“Rough day?” he asks her.

She looks at the bag then tosses him a smile. It’s rather a better day when they arrive home at the same time and she gets to appreciate this perfect male specimen as he unlocks his door. Oliver’s been her neighbour for the past six months, and they’re slowly becoming more than acquaintances. “Something like that.”

“I’m sure you’ll unwind with supplies like that,” he says teasingly, and she doesn’t flush red until his door opens and he has the indecency to wink at her before he goes into his apartment.

When she goes to bed later, she does unwind, and she feels a lot better after she comes around her fingers with the sound of his loud moaning through the wall.

–

She isn’t sure how it starts, but it becomes a routine.

He works late, she knows he’s a co-owner of a club in the Glades, and he arrives back at midnight most weeknights. Alone. She can hear every sound of his bedroom because the resting drywall between hers is definitely not soundproof, and she’s fairly certain this used to be one big apartment before the landlord split it into two smaller ones, but she can’t bring herself to complain about it because it fills her with a sense of excitement when she hears him move around and get ready for bed.

He’s vocal when he touches himself. She wonders who it is he thinks about when he pants ‘yes’, ‘more’ and ‘god, yes’. She wonders who he’s thinking off when he comes.

Sometimes when she comes, she imagines what it would be like if it were her.

–

He sits against his headboard for a while before he gets ready for bed. He tells himself it’s not creepy, that it’s a game, but he supposes it is a little creepy to listen to the woman next door get into bed and then start touching himself when he knows she can hear.

He knows her movements easily now. He knows the sound of her glasses hitting the bedside table. He knows the sound of her glass of water being lifted and set back down. He knows the sound of her lamp being turned off. Then he gets undressed, slips beneath the sheets, and closes his eyes to thoughts of her.

Maybe that part’s creepy.

She’s not his usual type, but she’s captivated him since he moved in next door and he hasn’t been with a woman since he first heard her cry out through the wall. He’d never come so quickly in his life under his own hand, and the erotic sound was one he wanted to hear again, and before he knew it this had become a nightly routine for them. He didn’t bring anyone home. She didn’t bring anyone home. She didn’t ask him to keep the noise down. He didn’t ask the same of her.

It was…an understanding, he supposed.

Sometimes he thinks about initiating those breathless gasps of hers, and wonders what her bright pink lips look like when she’s biting them in pleasure.

–

One night, the sound through the wall is silent. It sounded like she was shouting on the phone earlier when he walked past her apartment to get to his front door, and he’d considered checking on her but figured that was definitely a stalkerish listening-at-the-door neighbour thing and he doesn’t want to freak her out.

But when he waits to hear her move around in the bedroom, all he hears is a sniffle. Another one. Then another. Then a hitch of breath.

She’s crying.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice an octave higher to be sure she hears him.

She goes silent for a long time, and he worries he’s crossed a line. “Bad day,” she says back eventually.

“Get some sleep,” he tells her, his hand on his thigh to reinforce the fact that he won’t be having his normal night tonight. “Tomorrow will be better.”

“Hope so,” she replies, then he hears her lamp shut off.

If she cries again, he doesn’t hear it.

–

There’s a bottle of wine outside her door when she gets home the next day, with a post-it note on the neck.

_Bad day? Drink through the pain. I’ve got a bottle too, so you’re technically not drinking alone. Oliver. P.s. if this is creepy, pretend you never saw the bottle._

It actually amuses her that he thinks this might be creepy, and the idea of them pleasuring themselves to each other’s moans isn’t at all creepy.

–

She downs the bottle of wine far quicker than she should.

That night she’s more vocal, louder from the moment she starts to toy with her clit, and she hears the reaction from him is very welcome. He’s not just getting off tonight, he’s getting off to the thought of her, and it just encourages her.

It’s building, building, consuming her and she thinks of his hands on her, thinks of that stubble grazing her thigh, those lips against her—

“OLIVER!”

His moans stop, she sucks in a breath of realisation, and then she hears nothing but silence.

Silence until there’s a knock at her door.

–

The moment she opens the door, having scrambled for a robe as soon as she realised it was him, she’s greeted with a set of dark eyes that belong to a man in front of her door wearing only his underwear, and god, he’s…an actual god, actually, that was a good word choice. He meets her eyes for a second, then he’s leaping at her, letting himself into his apartment while his lips crash against hers and rather than push him away and decide that this is definitely overstepping most normal neighbourly boundaries, she loops her arms around his neck and draws him in closer.

He backs her against the nearest wall, she ignores the photoframe that rattles next to her head, because he’s lifting her by the thighs and pressing her against the wall to let her feel how hard he still is. He hasn’t come yet, and while she has, the feel of his erection snug against her is making her stomach twist in anticipation.

He pulls away from her lips to look at her, and she gets a small thrill from the fact that some of her lipstick has smeared over his lips. She reaches out, tracing her thumb over those lips she was imagining less than a few minutes ago and her breath hitches when he rocks his hips, pressing his solid bulge against her.

“You said my name,” he pants. “You’ve never said my name before.”

“I was thinking about you,” she confesses, because really, why bother being shy about it now?

“I always think about you,” he groans, and he toys with the rope that holds her robe together and moans when it parts in his hands to reveal her bare body beneath it. He looks at her like a man starved presented with a feast, and there’s something possessive and desperate in his gaze that has her whimpering. He leans in, latching his teeth to her throat. “I think about you every night.”

“You don’t have to imagine now,” she tells him, rolling her hips into his and suddenly the barrier of his underwear is too much.

He closes his eyes, groaning loudly. “Don’t, I’ll…” he bites back the words, and opens his darkened gaze to hers again. “I’ve been dreaming of getting my mouth on you for months. I want to hear you come up close before I’m done,” he announces.

She shivers, tightens her legs around his waist and moans when she feels his erection brushing right where she wants him, and god, he’s huge. “You know where the bedroom is,” she pants in response.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” he groans, pulling her away from the wall.

–

The next morning she wakes up with a very naked neighbour in her bed, trailing his fingertips up her spine so lazily she wonders if she’s been dreaming about this.

“Sooo, that happened,” she raises her eyebrows at him.

“I’m glad that it did,” he smiles at her.


	13. Blurred Edges [Soulmate AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melsanfo said:
> 
> Prompt for you! I’m a big softy for Soulmate AUs so, how about a fic where everyone sees in blurs till they meet their soulmate? Soulmates seeing in color with a twist! Brownie points if you use the ‘you’re cute’ picture flashback scene cuz *swoon* ♡

When Oliver starts to kill for Amanda Waller, it starts to make sense that his world has always seen a little blurred around the edges, because now his conscience is blurring too.

Debauchery has never been a problem for him, but he always thought it would lead to the edges sharpening in his life. His father explained it to him when he was six years old, when someone had first asked him about his soulmate and he hadn’t known what it meant. His father had told him how one day he’d walked into a gala and spotted Oliver’s mother, and the whole world had shifted, sharpened up, and what was one blurred lines had become a staggering clarity.

Oliver had always expected his world to shift, but it never had. He kissed women, fucked women, lead them into his path and pushed them aside because his world had always been unsettled, unbalanced, and unfocused.

Then he starts to kill for Amanda Waller.

He’s never seen clearly, so the blurred edges aren’t a hindrance for him. He doesn’t feel blind, like those whose soulmates have died complain of, and embraces the compromised vision like he does all other opportunities - because this will keep him alive. Maseo tells him how it is to kill when you have seen clearly, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about the minute details of murder and what it’s like to see the light in a man’s eyes flicker out. Sometimes, Oliver doesn’t even see the colour of their eyes through the accustomed blur.

He sneaks his way into Queen Consolidated as if he’s imposing on his own life. He walks through the halls, albeit stealthily, and he feels unwelcome here for the first time.

But then he sees her.

She walks through into the office he’s just evacuated, and his world shifts.

Everything plunges into clarity, and he can see what he has never seen before. He sees her hair, slightly darker at the roots, obviously coloured unnaturally and in need of a re-do. He sees her glasses, the shine of the lamp lights reflecting off the lenses and he wonders what it’s like to see in unfocused clarity and still need corrected vision. He sees each polka dot of her shirt, sees the way her ID badge bounces against her chest as she steps, sees the vibrant colour of her painted lips.

And he falls.

–

Years later, he finds her. He wants to find her the moment he’s back in Starling but he doesn’t want to seem creepy. Besides, she may be his soulmate, but that doesn’t guarantee that he is hers. So looks her up and he waits until he has a semi-normal reason to approach her.

“Felicity Smoak?”

She lifts her head at his name, her eyes normal until suddenly they’re not. In his focused mind, he sees something of a flash flicker over her irises and she sucks in a breath, and if there is anything more beautiful than the way his world had focused and centered around her years ago, it is this. It is here, watching her world sharpen from outside her eyes.

“Hi,” he smiles, “I’m Oliver Queen.”

Because this is his soul mate, and he’s waited a lifetime to meet her.


	14. Variety Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> geniewithwifi said: prompt: Olicity. Person A is stocking up on condoms like COSTCO SIZE and Person B is the one checking them out (double meaning)… “I can help you try them out”
> 
> Note: I freaking Googled what kind of multipacks of condoms Costco buy. That’s in my browser history. I hope you’re happy. I actually really like this one, it’s going down as one of my favourites XD

Oliver Queen is in her checkout line.

Oliver, freaking, Queen.

He’s there, all tight-t-shirt and huge-freaking-arms and oh God, he’s even doing that barely-there-stubble thing that makes her want to fall to her knees, and maybe she’s got something of a crush on him and maybe she’s also a tiny bit in love with this enormous specimen of male perfection, so what the hell is he doing in Costco where she works and why the hell is in her checkout line?

“You take credit right?” he asks her, barely looking up as he thumbs through his wallet.

She’s never wanted to be a wallet before. She kinda wants to now.

He looks up at her, and she realises she hasn’t answered.

“Yes,” she blurts out, and she starts scanning through his groceries. Nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Except the 60 pack of Durex that she scans through and it actually makes her palms sweat a little.

“Stocking up for hibernation?”

The words are blurted out before she can stop them, and she winces and wants to die just about one hundred perfect when he looks up at her with pure amusement. “Something like that,” he humours her.

They fall into a silence that is far better than anything she might blurt out, but then his curiosity seems to be growing.

“Wait, I know you, don’t I?”

“Sorry?” she squeaks out.

“We’re in the same class for…economics, right?” he guesses, and God, please say he hasn’t noticed the gormless way she stares at the back of his head when he trawls in thirty minutes late to class with sex hair.

“Yeah, we are,” she nods, looking down at what she’s scanning. “You uh…picked a good brand,” she says, gesturing to the box. “I mean…most people go for quantity over quality here, because, you know, it’s Costco, but that’s a 60-pack of Durex, which are a good brand, and usually really expensive for a 12-pack and this is only $13.99, which is like 23 cents per condom, which is a great deal.”

“You should go into advertising,” he smirks, and fuck, he’s actually teasing her and there’s an old lady in the queue behind him that’s staring at her like she’s going straight to hell when she’s done. She probably will. She’d actually welcome the ground opening up and swallowing her whole. “Besides, quality’s important, nothings one hundred percent effective, right?” he adds.

“Right,” she blurts. “I guess when you’re buying a bumper pack of Durex you’re not in the market for herpes or babies.”

“Well, both are hard to get rid of once they’ve arrived, so yeah, I’d like to hold off on those a while,” he hints. Oh god, he’s telling her jokes. And it’s a terrible joke, but he’s not exactly known for his sense of humour so she’ll let that slide and just…stare at him a while longer. “So, how do you know so much about condom success rates?” he asks.

“I paid attention in health class,” she points out.

“I skipped that class,” he says with a guilty smile. “I skipped most classes, actually.”

“Plus, it’s on the box,” she says as she waves it and puts it in a bag for him.

“So, any tips for being extra careful?” he asks her, and customer service training definitely wasn’t thorough enough at Costco, she is definitely not qualified to have a conversation with Oliver Queen about anything, least of all birth control.

“Well, science is about testing,” she rambles. “So you can find someone to help you test them…carefully, that is. Someone like me, who’s on birth control already so it’s not risky for illegitimate pregnancy.”

His eyebrows arch. “Someone like you?”

“Not me!” she insists, hands flying to her mouth. “I didn’t mean. Oh God, I wasn’t coming onto you, I swear. I just…it was an example, you know.”

He hands over his credit card, and she swipes it as quickly as she possibly can. The only way to end this personal hell is to get the transaction over with and go home and dive into a tub of ice cream and–

“What flavour?”

Oh god, she said that out loud. She looks at him, and he just shrugs.

“Well, if you’re going to help me test these out, the least I can do is buy you the ice cream you’ll need to get through it, right?”

She can’t reply. She forgot how to speak. What are words?

“Tell you what. I’m going to get get a few flavours, you can serve the rest of your checkout line, and when I come back, you can serve me, and then when your shift ends, I’ll….serve you,” he winks.

He’s gone before she can form a response.

His credit card’s still in her hand.

The old lady behind him in the checkout line starts passing up her items. Felicity’s just staring at the space where Oliver Queen used to stand. She starts ringing up the transaction, passing through the old lady’s denture cream, and she stops when she feels the lady place a hand on her arm, and dammit, even she winks at Felicity.

“Don’t worry, dear. I don’t need help testing that.”


	15. Sneaking Around [Affair AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Hi! Can a drop a prompt maybe? So I kinda want to see a married Felicity having an affair with Oliver and like mb their relationship is forbidden of she won’t leave a husband for some reason and Oliver’s not wanting to pressure her into doing such thing but really he’s hurting and mb there’s pregnancy involved and omg this sounds like multi chap but I just want smth why no one wrote this yet? And anyways it’s sad and angsty… but a happy ending maybe? So yeah

To say it’s a mess is an understatement.

Ray’s a good husband, at the end of the day. He works hard to provide for his wife, brings home flowers, takes her for fancy dinners and flies her out to the most exotic vacations a girl could ask for.

There’s only one problem.

He’s not Oliver.

See, Ray’s a good husband, but he’s far from a perfect one, and when she really thinks about he’s not even a great one. Barely good. Good on paper. He’s attractive, dresses sharply, an amazing businessman, a fantastic inventor. He’s even good in bed. When he’s there.

He’s not there a lot.

Sure, they go on great vacations, but a lot of the time Felicity is left alone while he goes to conferences and business meetings that last all night. They go out for dinner when he needs to lock down a deal, and he acts like the perfect husband until they leave the restaurant and Felicity becomes transparent against the workload he has waiting for him. He wants to conquer the technical world, and she wants that for him. But he sends flowers when he isn’t coming home for three days, doesn’t eat the meals she cooks, doesn’t notice the lingerie she tries to entice him with.

Marriage isn’t working, but divorce would end him, she knows that.

But then Oliver comes into her life and everything she thinks she knows starts to change.

–

She first meets him at an investment at Queen Consolidated. He’s the CEO’s son, she’s accompanying Ray for reasons she doesn’t exactly understand, but he turns up to wait in his father’s office while she’s waiting on the other side of a glass wall until the meetings finished. They lock eyes, and an hour later they’re still talking when the meeting lets out. Then Felicity leaves with Ray.

She wants him to be jealous. He didn’t even notice she was talking to another man.

–

Oliver tracks her down. Apparently her marriage isn’t something that puts him off. He pursues her, sends her flowers, finds ways to be in the same places she’s in and watches her with those heated eyes even when she’s on her husband’s arm.

Oliver wants her.

She hasn’t felt wanted in a long time.

–

When Ray goes on a week-long convention in Boston, Felicity spends a week in a motel off the beaten track with Oliver. The room is crappy, basic and cheap, but his head between her thighs is better than anything she’s ever experienced. He spends their time fucking her into the mattress, against the wall, in the shower, on the floor, everywhere in the room, and she hasn’t had sex like this since her honeymoon. She’s not had a sexual relationship with Ray for almost a year, so to have Oliver inside her, even if it’s just this one week, makes her come apart at the seams, and she unravels with this new man’s name on her lips.

It doesn’t always feel like betrayal. He isn’t giving her anything that Ray hasn’t denied her.

Except on their final night at the motel, he doesn’t fuck her. He spreads her out on the bed before him and kisses every inch of her body until she’s begging him for more. She draws him in and he makes love to her. He actually makes love to her until there are tears in her eyes and when she screams it comes with a wave of emotion she hasn’t felt in a long time.

Then, it feels like betrayal.

–

Oliver follows her, watches her, and when Ray spends his time looking anywhere but her, she knows there are eyes on her.

So she wears the dresses that show a little extra. She puts her hair up to expose her neck. She wears the red lipstick.

She escapes a gala for twenty minutes, leaving Ray downstairs with his investors while she goes to Oliver’s hotel room upstairs and lets him bury his face between her thighs. She lets Oliver finger her beneath a dinner table when they go to celebrate the business deal with Queen Consolidated. She lies about a trip to her mother’s and spends a week in a Vegas hotel getting fucked so intensely it leaves the bruise marks of Oliver’s fingers in her thighs. Ray doesn’t notice.

–

It carries on for a year.

She’s married to Ray, but she’s very, very, very much in love with Oliver.

But then everything changes.

Again.

–

“What do you mean you’re pregnant?”

The question hangs in the air. His voice is hardened in ways she’s never heard before.

“I thought you were on birth control?” he asks her, almost accusingly.

“I was,” she tells him defensively. “It must have been when I was on antibiotics for my ear infection, besides, you don’t exactly love using a condom, do you?” she shoots back at him.

He dips his head, running his hands through his hair. “So it’s mine?”

“Of course it is,” she sighs. “Ray and I haven’t been together like that for over two years now…”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

That’s the question, isn’t it?

–

She meets him in Coast City. It’s a far cry from Starling. It’s so far away from everything, and more importantly, it’s just the two of them.

She leaves Ray with a note of explanation and leaves in the night. She receives an apology in an email four days later when he finally finds her message. He admits he could have done more to be a good husband to her, and in his final act as a good husband, he uses his fortune to fast-track the divorce papers she’d signed before leaving.

She’s officially divorced on the day that her and Oliver sign the lease on their house together.

Her and Oliver become a couple. No more sneaking around. They go on dates where they don’t have to sneak meet-ups in the hallway, they have sex in rooms of their house, not in motel rooms, they go for breakfast, go for dinner, they date, they live together.

Oliver asks her to marry him on their son’s first birthday.

Felicity gets a husband who doesn’t drive her into the arms of another man.


	16. Sold [Bachelor Auction AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said:
> 
> AU Prompt: Felicity’s tendancy to over gesticulate after a few drinks means that she ends up winning Oliver in a Charity Bachelor auction.

“Sold, for two thousand dollars to the girl in the pink!”

Felicity freezes mid-word. She’s wearing pink. She’s the only one in the room wearing this particular shade of pink. Oh god, and her arm’s in the air. Well, halfway, at least.

And they’re at an auction. She’s got her arm in the air and she’s at an auction.

“Oh god,” she blanches. “What did I just do?”

Thea winces over her drink, looks in the direction that Felicity can’t bare to glance in, and raises her eyebrows. “I think you just paid two grand for my brother.”

Her drink falls to the floor. Can she even pay for a person? Isn’t that slavery? Shouldn’t this be frowned upon? Why are they even allowing people like her - clumsy stupid, stupid, stupid people - into a charity auction anyway? Shouldn’t they be auctioning actual things? Like…a speedboat, or a car, or a piece of art?

Jeez, Thea’s brother is definitely a work of art though.

He’s also her boss.

Crap.

Turning with a wince, she looks hesitantly towards the stage where thankfully, the sound of polite applause is drowning out the sounds of her horrified groan. She waves slightly, hands falling into her lap as the bartender discreetly disposes of her shattered glass but unfortunately doesn’t replace her with another of the complimentary drinks she’s already had too many of.

Oliver Queen. She’s just unintentionally won - well, brought - a date with Oliver Queen. Her best friend’s stunning, gorgeous, perfect all-out-God of a brother. There aren’t enough curse words in all languages combined for her to stop freaking out right now. Is she even breathing? Because Thea’s looking at her funny and breathing is important, she should definitely breath. Not breathing would get her out of paying the two thousand dollars she now owes a charity she can’t remember the name of. Oh god, she really shouldn’t have drank so much. But hey, what’s bad about free drinks?

So much. So much is bad.

–

“Well, this is unexpected,” Oliver freaking Queen declares when he slides up to his new ‘owner’ that night.

She groans into her hand, and when she looks to Thea for help, she very unhelpfully excuses herself to the bar, leaving Felicity to own up to her terrible mistake.

She turns in her seat, hands twisting in her lap and god, he’s rather breathtaking up close, isn’t he? This is almost as bad as the time she bumped into him - literally - in Thea’s hallway when he was staying at her place and Felicity had gone there during the aftermath of a drunken party. Except now he’s not just wearing a towel, he’s wearing a really, seriously nice tuxedo and wow, okay, suit porn is a thing she’s into, that’s new.

“I can’t afford you,” she blurts out.

His eyebrows shoot up.

“I mean…you’re not cheap. Not like…morally cheap, although I have heard stories, which doesn’t matter now, not at all, that’s not what this is about,” she winced, shutting her mouth tightly for a moment before she continued. “I mean, I don’t have the two thousand dollars for the charity, so this…doesn’t have to happen.”

“I know,” he nods, and she matches his movement, expecting him to walk away. “I paid the money.”

He what?

She realises she spoke out loud when he grins shyly - shy? him? - at her, and ducks his head a little. “I figured it was a mistake, but I’ve actually been trying to think of a way to ask you out for the last year, so I paid the donation and decided this would be the perfect excuse.”

Oh.

“Oh,” she mutters, far too stunned to respond.

“So…is that a good ‘oh’?” he asks. “Or did I completely misjudge the huge crush that Thea told me you had on me?”

“She told you that?” Felicity whispers, searching for her friend in betrayal and slumping a little.

“If it’s any consolation, it was only because I asked what my chances were with you,” Oliver offers with one of his more charming smiles. “So, Miss Smoak,” he grins, adding a mock bow before her. “You have me for an entire evening, what will it be?”

She bites her lip, because the idea of an evening with Oliver Queen at her disposal is something that’s frequently appeared in her incredibly sordid dreams. And she has just paid two thousand dollars for him, hasn’t she? Well, he has. If she sleeps with him after their date, is it prostitution? If she doesn’t, is it just slavery?

Either way, this should be an arrestable offence, not a fundraiser.

But, since the deed is done…

She gathers up her courage and straightens again, taking a deep breath. “Why just make it an evening?”


	17. Hero [College AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> laurelslvnce said: college au where Oliver saves felicity from a sexual assault/attack at his frat
> 
> Anonymous said: Uncomfortable prompt: felicity os physically or sexually abused. I was gonna suggest oliver to be the culprit here but i just can’t. How bout hes the savior.

She wasn’t one for premonitions, but she was absolutely sure that this is the exact reason she had a bad feeling about coming to a frat party.

Frat parties were her idea of hell, far too much music and drunken disorientation for her. She usually liked to take advantage of everyone going to a frat party because it meant that her shared dorm would be empty. But tonight was for Tommy’s birthday and Oliver was throwing him a big ‘thing’ at their frat house which essentially ended up with Felicity being made to come along because she really couldn’t say no to them when they reduced themselves to actively entering the library to ask her.

But this? This she didn’t sign up for.

She hadn’t tasted anything off in her drink, except the fact that it felt more alcoholic than she remembered pouring it, but the moment her head started to spin and there was a hand on her elbow guiding her outside to get some air, she knew she was in trouble.

–

Oliver almost stands on her phone when he comes across it in the kitchen. He desperately needed another beer before he attempted any more shots - after all, someone needed to stay alert enough to make sure the evening ran right - but when he saw Felicity’s pink-cased phone on the floor he frowned to himself. She never went anywhere without her phone - especially at a party when she didn’t know that many people. She certainly wouldn’t have left it out where it could be broken or stolen.

Picking it up, he called out her name, but she was nowhere in sight in the kitchen. Grabbing the arm of the younger boy filling his cup with ice, he questioned where she was.

“Some guy took her outside.”

‘Some guy’ wasn’t good enough for his liking. That could be anyone.

When he stepped into the garden and saw her weakly struggling as a boy he doesn’t know pinned her against the wall and forced her underwear down to her knees, he saw red.

–

Tommy got there first, with a punch to the guy’s jaw while Oliver stopped Felicity falling to the ground. He wasn’t sure where his friend came from, but Oliver was glad for his presence because he was pretty sure he’d have been close to committing a real, life-sentence crime in that moment. Instead, he focuses on his friend, on the girl who helped him pass his first semester economics class and who set up the speaker system in the frat house, the girl who ties with Tommy for best friend status and for a while has been bordering on the edge of something more.

He wasn’t sure where he found the focus to use the movement of her slumping to lift her panties back up her thighs before she worries about her dignity, but he was glad for it. His hands appeared from underneath her dress as he lowered her down slower, cupping a hand to her cheek.

“Hey, Felicity…Felicity, look at me…”

“No,” she argued weakly, trying to push at him to get him off of her, and with her heavy, sluggish movements, he looked up at Tommy.

“He must have slipped something in her drink. Can you get a distraction going? I need to get her upstairs?” He said, his attention focusing back on Felicity, encasing her hand in his with the arm that wasn’t holding her upright. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s me, it’s Oliver.”

“Oliver,” she repeated, lulling her head onto his shoulder.

“You’re okay, Lis, I’ve got you,” he murmured, sweeping back her hair. He waited to hear Tommy drawing everyone away from conversation by announcing another run at a keg, and lifted Felicity into his arms. She struggled at first, her muscles too relaxed for her to grip him or try to stand on her own. “Come on,” he encouraged her, looping her arm around his neck and tucking his arms underneath her back and legs. “Hold onto me tight, okay?”

“Okay,” she repeated quietly, so fragile that he couldn’t help but brush his lips over his forehead.

Tommy’s distraction was perfect, and he managed to get Felicity upstairs to his bedroom without any unwanted attention. He locked the door immediately after setting her down on his bed, and when he turned again he could see her shaking, rough tremors racking her form as she stared at her hands.

“Wh…what’s happening?” she muttered, her breath coming in faster now.

He looked around for something, then picked up the throw blanket his mom had insisted he needed - it was just the blanket he used instead of a shirt when he was hungover - and wrapped it around her shoulders, rubbing her upper arms through it as he crouched in front of her. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked her calmly.

She shook her head at first. “H-he…I don’t know…I felt dizzy, he t-took me outside, then he…” she sucked in a deep breath and her trembling increased. “He was touching me, I didn’t…I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to,” she repeated as her chest started to heave, tears spilling onto her cheeks.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, and stroked his hand over her hair when she leaned down so her head was on his shoulder. “He’s not going to hurt you now, you’re safe now.” He wanted to hold her until her tremors ceased, until the anger in his stomach stopped churning, but neither happened and he reluctantly lifted her head. She protested, but he listened. “Lis, come on, I need you to think for a minute.”

She looked at him, and the sight of tears on her cheeks broke his heart.

“I need you to tell me how you’re feeling, okay? We might need to get you to the hospital–”

“No!” she sobbed out once.

“Maybe,” he told her. “But I need you to tell me, okay? What are you feeling?”

“I feel…nauseous,” she decided, looking down at her wringing hands again. “I feel scared, like I’ve been running and I can’t stop running, but I’m so tired. I want to sleep, but-”

“No,” he insisted quickly, looking up from his phone where he’d been looking up her symptoms. “Don’t go to sleep, okay?”

“But I feel dizzy,” she argued weakly.

“You have to stay awake, just for a while,” he told her. “I think we can avoid the hospital but if we have to go, we have to go, okay?”

“I don’t want to go,” she whispered tearfully.

“Just stick to right now,” he told her, his hands framing her face. “You’re right here, you’re completely safe, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, I promise. Tomorrow I’m gonna go find this guy and kick his ass into next year, but right now you’re here with me, okay? I’m not going to leave you.”

Her shaking hands gripped into his wrists for leverage. “The party-”

“Doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “There will be other parties, but I’ve only got one Lis, okay?”

“Okay,” she muttered, her eyes closing.

“I’m going to get you some water,” he told her, his touch lingering before he went to the ensuite bathroom and emptied out the glass he’d left there that morning, rinsing it clean before he took it back to her.

She took a sip and he could see on her face how it made her feel from her grimace, but he shook his head, urging the glass back to her. “No, all of it,” he told her.

“Oliver-”

“Drink it all,” he told her. “We need to flush out your system, the sooner the better.” She finished the glass, albeit slowly, and when he set the glass on the floor, she gripped the blanket he’d wrapped around her. Her breathing became erratic and she was shifting in her seat. “Lis?” he questioned, raising up on his knees.

“Sick,” she choked out simply, and he moved quickly.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever moved as quickly as he had when he lifted her from the edge of the bed and moved her to the bathroom, crouching behind her as she bent over the toilet and emptied her stomach into it. His phone was back in his pocket, luckily, so between rubbing her back he flicked through google to try and figure out if this was good or bad. When he wasn’t sure, he sent a text to Tommy that they might need to consider the hospital.

Thirty minutes later, he heard the lock on his bedroom door being picked open. Only Tommy would shift it open with his credit card like that, so Oliver didn’t flinch from his spot leaning against the wall, Felicity tucked into his lap when she wasn’t vomiting. The house was quiet now, he realised when the door was left open, and with a nod from Tommy he realised that he’d made a quick job of clearing out the party and calling the paramedics.

–

She woke up to white walls, itching sheets and a thumping headache. She clenched her eyes shut to adjust her vision, blindly reaching for her glasses and finding none. Her glasses are slipped over her nose, and she turned to see a very ruffled and slightly hungover Oliver at her side.

“Are we at the hospital?” she whispered into the quiet room.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I know you didn’t want to come, but you were getting pretty sick and we panicked.”

“It’s okay,” she muttered, rolling onto her side to face him. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her, shaking his head and leaning his forearms onto the edge of her bed.

“No, thank you,” she insisted, putting her hand over his. “I don’t remember much, but I remember you being there.”

“You’re my girl, I’ll always be there,” he assured her softly, glad for the smile that it brought to her lips.

“Better be,” she muttered as he eyes closed again.

He squeezed her hand. “Where else would I ever be?”


	18. The Right Thing [Teen Pregnancy AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Can you do a high school au of olicity kinda sad but has a happy ending?!?
> 
> Anonymous said: I don’t know if you do high school AUs (if you don’t feel free to ignore this, sorry), but could you do a high school AU where Felicity or Oliver is getting bullied and the other one helps them stand up to the bully or something like that?
> 
> niki-is-amazing submitted: Felicity and Oliver get together and Felicity ends up pregnant and Oliver proposes to her and in the end they get married and have a bouncing baby boy and the month after she gives birth they graduate highschool.

“Whore.”

“Whale.”

“ _Slut_.”

The last word has Oliver slamming his locker shut. One of the band kids who is standing next to him at their locker almost jumps clean off the ground in surprise. He doesn’t have to turn around to see what’s happening but he does anyway.

Felicity’s attempting to replace one pile of books with another, hidden behind her locker door that shields her from the faces of those shouting the spiteful comments at her. It makes his his blood boil, but he says nothing, even if he does almost bite through his lip in the process. He can’t because she doesn’t want him to, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can stand to watch this.

They may not be able to see her face, but he can, and he can see the tears reaching her chin even though her face is half hidden by her hair. She wipes her face furiously, and he sees her hand flinch down instinctively, but she pulls it back at the last minute. He understands why. There’s enough attention on the subject as it is, especially now she’s starting to show and even her baggiest hoodies can’t hide it.

“Have fun being a single mom in senior year,” one of them snarls.

Her locker door slams shut and she walks past, brushing past him without a second glance except for the very deliberate pot to the inside of his elbow - their secret signal for needing to talk.

His glare silences the girls, and he skips the next period to join her outside.

–

“Just let me talk to them,” he offers again.

“No,” she insists, shaking her head firmly and wiping her cheeks. “As soon as you do, they’ll know it’s yours and then what?”

“Then you won’t be going through it all alone,” he points out.

“I can handle this,” she tells him. He gives her a look that says he doesn’t quite believe her and she rolls her eyes. “I’m not crying because of them, it’s the damn hormones.”

She slouches forward as much as she can. Here, no one can see them, so he reaches out and rubs his hand across the small of her back. She sighs at it eases some of the pressure there. “Twelve weeks go to,” he tries encouragingly.

“Twelve is a big number,” she complains.

“Okay, three,” he changes his mind. “Three months to go.”

She takes a deep breath, glancing at him for a moment before she looks away. “Oh, we have that thing at five today, remember. My mom’s driving me, but she said if you and your mom want to come, we can come pick you up on the way.”

“The thing?” he questions.

“The meeting with the adoption agency.”

“Oh,” he mutters, his face falling even more.

When he doesn’t react, she looks at him hesitantly. “Oliver, we’re still on the same page with this, right?”

He chews on his lower lip. “Right,” he mumbles.

“I mean, we’re sixteen. We can’t really…”

“I know,” he nods slowly, because he really doesn’t want to hear the justification again. He shakes himself, clearing his throat. “We want to come. Me and my mom. I don’t think she trusts my judgement when it comes to picking a family for our kid.”

“If our judgement could be trusted we wouldn’t even be in this situation,” she points out.

–

They pick a family. The West family out in Central City. Close enough that it’s not too far too travel for the open adoption they’ve chosen - photos sent through the agency every six months, possible visitation once a year depending on circumstances - but not so close that they have to bump into the family raising their illegitimate kid every time they go to the mall. They’re a good family, they’ve got a biological daughter and an adopted son already, they just want their family to grow.

Oliver wants his to start, but they’re in this so deep now that he doesn’t think it’s worth saying anymore.

–

They blow off prom because someone made a comment about how badly her dress fit her and she couldn’t bear to go inside. They sit in the diner where this whole ‘thing’ they have began, and talk about regrets in their fancy attire over a shared milkshake.

“I wish we’d been older,” Oliver confessed. She looks up at him from beneath her curled hair.

“Me too,” she agrees, and reaches across the table to put her hand over his.

“We’re doing the right thing for him, aren’t we?” Oliver checks, one more time, with a nod at her stomach. There’s only a month to go now, and they know now that they’re having a boy because the West’s wanted to know what to expect.

“They’re a good family,” she says instead. “They can give him a lot more than we can. I know your family’s rich, and both our family’s said they’d support us, but…we’re not as ready for this as everyone wants us to be,” she reminds him. “We haven’t even graduated yet…and college? What if I do get into M.I.T? Am I supposed to move away to college with a baby while you go to Starling U? It just wouldn’t work.”

She’s right, she always is.

He just wants her to be wrong for once.

–

She goes into labour a month before graduation, at two o’clock in the morning. Her mother calls his, and they race to the hospital to meet them there. He’s banned from the room at first because she only wants her mother there, but when the labour really starts progressing she changes her mind and it’s Donna on one side with Oliver holding her hand at the other side.

Their son is born at 9.26 in the morning on a Sunday, and they both cry when Felicity holds him.

–

“Mr and Mrs West are ready when you are, but take all the time you need with him. They’re patient,” the nurse tells them before the door closes.

They’ve had twenty-two hours with their son - and Oliver hasn’t slept for a single on. Felicity slept through the night apart from when the nurses woke her, but the nurses had fed the baby through the night because it was decided that the bonding might be too painful to separate from.

When the door closes, Oliver looks up at her, where she’s sat with the baby sleeping on her outstretched thighs, and she shakes her head, lowering her face from his as she looks down at the baby they can’t keep and releases a long, pained sob.

They cried when they help him, but it’s been hollow and quiet since then. Reality has crept up on them, though, and now they have to say goodbye.

“We’re doing the right thing for him,” Oliver tells her through his tight throat, repeating the words she’s gotten him through the last eight months telling him.

“He’s ours,” she whimpers between her cries. “He should be with us.”

“Felicity, we can’t-”

“I can’t do this, Oliver,” she shakes her head, and when her sobs overtake her he moves into the space beside her knees, drawing her into his arms as much as he can without crushing the baby. “I don’t want to give him up. I don’t want to lose him. I want him to be ours.” She clings to him, crying into his shoulder and he can’t help but join her, because he doesn’t want to do this either.

They aren’t ready to keep him.

They aren’t ready to say goodbye.

–

An hour later, a soft knock at the door interrupts them. They’re sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the hospital bed, Oliver’s arm around her as she holds the sleeping baby boy right up against her chest, cradling his head between them.

“We don’t want to rush you, but-”

Donna stops when the two tear-stained faces glance up at her.

“Did you mean it?” Oliver asks their mothers. “You said…if we want to do this, will you still help us, like you said?”

Neither mother speaks at first, the shock on both their faces evident, but it’s Felicity who breaks them.

“You said we had twenty-four hours to change our minds,” she reminds them. “We still have time, right?”

–

“Oliver Queen….”

“Felicity Smoak…”

The applause follows them instead of the snide remarks as they cross the stage one after the other, accepting their diplomas with their shoulders held high and smiles on their faces. When they reach the other side, they join the line of their classmates, none of whom look at them directly, but they link hands in plain sight for once, their grins only for one another, because they did it, they made it through the year.

Once the crowd disperses and they find their families, its no surprise that the camera comes out, snapping pictures of the young couple on their graduation day.

“We’re missing someone,” Oliver says in the middle of the third photograph, before he stepped over to his mother and plucked the wide awake baby boy out of her arms. “Come on, bud, it’s a big day,” he announced softly as he held him delicately in the space between him and Felicity.

“Yeah, Daddy graduated,” Felicity cooed with a tease as she kissed her boy’s forehead. “No one saw that coming.”

He raises his head, all too aware of the cameras following, and plants a kiss right on her forehead. “I didn’t see a lot of things coming.”


	19. Elevator Adventures [First Meeting AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> melsanfo said: A first meeting AU Prompt. Oliver is the CEO of QC. He goes to work on a Saturday/Sunday when the building is supposed to be deserted and he finds a little girl in the elevator. 5 years old, brown hair, blue eyes, glasses and wicked smart. She’s Felicity’s daughter, she knows who he is ‘You’re Mister Queen’ and she tells him all about how mommy’s mean boss yelled at her on the phone to come to work (since HE didn’t want to) forcing Felicity to cancel her child’s b-day party or other special day.

“Hello, Mr. Queen.”

The tiny voice took him aback. He’d only stepped into the office for a short moment to pick up some files, even though he knew that he’d end up working for at least four hours in the process, but he hadn’t expected anyone else to be in the building on a Sunday. Much less a very short, very infantile person. He certainly didn’t expect a child to be in the elevator unattended.

He looked down at the little girl in question, trying to judge if he knew her because she certainly seemed to know him. She was just below his waist in height, hiding a large pair of blue eyes behind a pair of purple glasses. Her brown hair was running wild, a quick guess telling him that it probably escaped from the hair bands that she had wrapped around her wrist.

“Hello…” he replied slowly. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Emma,” she said brightly. “Emma Smoak.”

“Hello to you, Emma Smoak,” he smiled. “What are you doing in the elevator all on your own?”

“I’m not on your own, you’re here,” she pointed out.

“You were on your own before I got here,” he reminded her.

“My Mom has to work. She gave me money for the candy machine, but I went through the wrong door and ended up in here instead, and now I can’t remember what number floor she works on.” The declaration was accompanied with a shrug. “I’m sure she’s worried.”

“Well, can you tell me your Mom’s name?” Oliver asked her.

“Felicity Smoak,” she recited. “I also know my telephone number and my address, but I can’t just tell my address to everyone in case they’re crazy stalkers.”

He didn’t hold back his smile. “Well you don’t have to worry about me, I’m not a crazy stalker. I’m the CEO of the company. That means-”

“You’re the boss,” she cut him off. “I know that. I’m very bright for my age.”

“So I can see,” he nodded. “So can you remember what work your Mom’s doing today?”

“She fixes the computers,” Emma explains. “She’s very good at what she does, that’s why her mean old boss made her come in today to do all her work, which is stupid because it’s supposed to be our day to go to Big Belly Burger and now we can’t go and we won’t have time before Daddy comes to get me tonight.”

“Oh,” he replied, already hitting the button for the IT floor while still trying to process the rest of her information. “Can’t your Dad come and get you early?” he suggested.

“No, it’s not in the custody agreement,” she said brightly. “Daddy’s not very good at being a Daddy. He’s only allowed to see me if Grandma’s there as well, and if Grandma isn’t there or if Daddy takes me out anywhere in his car, I’m supposed to tell Mommy straight away.”

“Oh,” he stated, not sure how to respond to that, but luckily he was saved by the elevator doors opening.

Her face brightened. “This is it! This is Mommy’s floor!” He was about to press the button for his own floor when a tiny hand wrapped around his and tugged him out of the elevator.

And that’s how Oliver Queen ended up face to face with one Felicity Smoak.

“Mom, look who I found!”

Her eyes widened, the same bright blue eyes that were on the little girl. “Mr Queen! Oh god, I’m so sorry. I hope she wasn’t a pain. I know I’m not supposed to have her down here but it was an emergency and I didn’t have anyone else who can watch her and-”

“Relax, Miss Smoak,” he told her with one of his more charming smiles. “She was a little lost in the elevator, so I wanted to see her down here safely.”

“Thank you,” she replied with a heavy sigh of relief, fussing around Emma as she settled her at one of the empty desks with her colouring book. “I really am sorry-”

“I understand this isn’t your shift today,” he interrupted her.

“It’s not supposed to be, no, but I had a call from my boss and-”

“Consider this a call from his boss,” he assured her. “It’s Sunday, it’s your day off, you can go home.”

“Go…home?” she repeated.

“Mom, can Mr. Queen come to Big Belly with us?” Emma said eagerly, kneeling up on the chair.

Felicity looked panicked. “Emma, I’m sure Mr. Queen has far more important things-”

“Pleeeeeease,” she whined, turning on her begging face to the both of them. “He’s my best friend in the whole world.”

Oliver blinked. Felicity sighed. “Emma, he’s a very busy man-”

“I’d love to,” Oliver interrupted, shocking all three of them. “How can I turn down an offer from such a bright little girl?”

“Oh,” Felicity stammered. “I…I guess I should close things down here and-”

“I just have to grab a few files from my office. I’ll meet you in the lobby,” Oliver told her, putting a hand on her arm as he made his way back to the elevator.

–

“I just have to grab a file from my office.”

Emma, now a few weeks short of her seventh birthday, slouched her head back with a groan. “Oliverrrr, you always have to get files. Getting files is boring.”

He huffed out a laugh, holding tight to her hand as he lead her out of the elevator and into her office. “You’ll like this one,” he assured her.

She groaned loudly and he took her to his desk, picking up the file and handing it to her. “What is it?” she asked.

“Open it.”

She did, flicking through the paperwork inside until she got to the back page. “That’s my name.”

“It is,” he confirmed.

“And that’s your name and Mom’s name.”

“Do you know what it means?” he asked, kneeling down to her level. She shook her head as she looked away from the paper and up at him. “This is all of our adoption paperwork.” She’d heard them talking about that a few times now, and her look turned hopeful. “And this was all signed this morning by the lawyers, so it means that in two weeks, when your mom and I get married, you’ll officially be my daughter.”

“Is my name going to be Queen like Mom’s will be?” she asked him, her hands tightening on the paper.

“If you want it to be,” he nodded.

“You’re going to be my proper Dad?” she asked.

“Is that still okay?” he asked her.

She launched herself into his arms, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck. “Only if you’ll still be my best friend too.”


	20. Protocol [FBI AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> captainsummerday said: PROMPT: Former Frat boy, Oliver Queen ends up partnered with Cyber Skills expert, Felicity Smoak on their first day of FBI training. He spends the next year (or other appropriate passage of time) trying to undo his bad first impression. They may or may not be working on a case at the time. ;)

Oliver never planned to admit it, but he was always anxious to part ways with Felicity when they worked. Of course, in a professional manner it was completely acceptable, but his protective instinct towards her had far surpassed anything that could be classed as co-worker friendly. It was a dangerous business they worked in, especially getting into undercover work like they were in their current case, but it was what they were paid to do and he couldn’t exactly pull his partner out of the field when he had no authority to do so and she was damn good at her job.

Of course she was. Felicity Smoak was damn good at everything. She’d started off as his technical support in the field, partnered together in their first days out of the job after they’d excelled together in their training, but it had developed into more and now they were heading the more complicated operations and falling into undercover work had been another aspect they excelled at.

But she’d been gone for several hours now, and he was just starting to feel the need to check in on her - odd, because he was normally professional enough to wait for Felicity’s signal - when the buzz of his phone interrupted his thoughts and he slid the app open to see what the message said.

_Exodus._

He didn’t even type out a reply, he just started up the engine and double checked the GPS had the right co-ordinates for her extraction. Felicity knew the area well enough because she’d checked it out  multiple times during their mission, but Oliver had only been following second hand instructions earlier when he dropped her off as close as they could risk getting. He let the navigation system guide him, but turned off the sound because he wasn’t so lost in these back streets that he needed the system barking commands in his ear.

As he drove, his fingers drummed on the steering wheel, still somewhat anxious. Felicity had made contact, yes, but he still wanted to see for himself that everything had gone well. If she wasn’t, she’d have used another code. But she used Exodus, which was a willing extraction code.

It wasn’t always this way.

In the start, they hated each other. He’d made one too many lewd attempts at getting her into bed and she hadn’t liked it. He’d spent the last six years trying to make up for that failed first impression - which was hard when she rejected flowers, never wanted to go to dinner with him, and absolutely never wanted to be romanced - at least not by him. But she was happy enough to eat Big Belly Burger with them in the car and during the night shifts in the office, so he’d played the long game, drawing her in closer so that one day he could make a real move on her without pushing her away for good.

He parked just outside a residential area when he saw her walking towards his car, at least half a mile from the agreed extraction point. He shut off the engine and got out, careful to look generally unphased beneath his concern. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

“I was being watched at the pick up point, so I started walking like I told them I was going to,” she explained with a shrug.

“Right,” he nodded. “All went well?”

“Yes, but I’ll be very happy when this job is over,” she declared, folding her arms over her chest as she stood before him. In the heels she’d chosen to wear for this cover, she was almost the same height as him, lining them up in ways that brought a cocky smile to his face. “What are you grinning at, Queen?” she asked him.

“I could get used to seeing you in these outfits,” he winked at her before he opened the car door for her.

“Perv,” she shot back at him, but she was grinning. She made a move for the door but her heel caught on a small crack on the sidewalk and it sent her tumbling into him. He caught her, steadying her, but it brought her right up against him, her hands gripping into the collar of his coat.

For a moment there was nothing but breath. There was certainly nothing between them except his clothing because he really didn’t count hers - that tiny skin-tight dress that stopped barely below her ass, that clung to all the parts of her body he’d been forcing himself (poorly) not to focus on for the last few years. But how could he not think about them now? But he knew he had to let her go, had to release his steadying his hands from her waist no matter how delicious her curves were, because she surely wasn’t getting the same reaction from his touch as he was and–

“Oliver.”

Her voice was breathy against his his ear. Oliver. Not Queen, not his surname, not any variation of mockery. Just his name. It had never sounded so good.

He dipped his head forward, just inches away from her lips now. “We shouldn’t do this,” he mused aloud, but when he saw her bite her lip he let out a small moan of longing that betrayed him. “Felicity…” He glanced down at her lips, tugged between her teeth, but when he met her eyes he could only see longing. “God, Smoak, tell me you want this,” he all but pleaded.

“I want this,” she responded quickly, impatience taking over her as she grasped tighter at his coat before flattening her hands against his chest. “Whatever this is.”

“Sex,” he told her, his voice just a desperate breath, his fingertips digging into her hips to bring her even closer as he turned and pressed her against the car. “This is sex, before we explode, and then it’s…whatever comes next. But first sex, a lot of sex,” he insisted before he pressed his lips against hers.

It was furious, crushing and desperate. Felicity had no time to respond before he was kissing her, and she didn’t even try. She met him for each movement, a soft whimper leaving his throat when he slammed her against the now-closed passenger side door, her lips parted enough for Oliver’s tongue to find its way to hers. He tasted like coffee and those cream-cheese bagels he insisted on eating whenever he had to wait around in the bar, and she sank into it, savouring the touches they were finally allowing themselves as her hands left his chest to travel down to his sides, completely giving in to him.

Oliver moved his hands to the cool metal of the car, using his body weight to press Felicity up against it. Kissing her was an adrenaline rush he’d never felt outside of a mission before, and he deepened the kiss as soon as he could, nipping at her lips between small gasps of breath as he tried to fumble with the door handle just out of his reach. He might be desperate enough to take her now rather than try to drive anywhere, but if they were still being watched he’d at least make sure they weren’t giving a show for the public eye. The most privacy they could get right now was inside the car, and he tried in vain to get the back door open so he could get her inside before the temptation to work on the zipper at the back of her dress overwhelmed him.

Felicity - for all her grace - laughed into their kiss when she realised he was failing to get the door open, as if the image of her partner so sexually frustrated that he was struggling with such a menial task was the highlight of her evening. It broke their kiss and she glanced over to the side, seeing his intention for the back seat and having far too many flashbacks to college years and filthy fumbles. As he got the door open, she pushed his thick coat off his shoulders and threw it on the backseat - she didn’t want any stray safety belts pressing into her ass - and then let him push her inside, carefully shielding her head as he did so. She shifted back, her eyes never leaving Oliver as he squeezed himself into the car and shut the door.

He took a moment to admire the sight before him; a beautiful blonde sprawled across the backseat with one leg propped up on the seat with the other lain in the footwells. It pushed up her dress to her hips, and if he had more room inside the vehicle he’d have been able to dip lower and see exactly what she was wearing beneath.

“Here?” she asked from beneath him, an amused smile crossing her lips as she watched him try to fit his broad shoulders into the back of a car that was far too small for this.

“Not my first choice,” he said, tugging his shirt over his head and tossing it into the front seat. “But we have to be back at HQ in an hour for a debrief and I’m not wasting time driving to a motel.”

The moment he tried to unzip his pants, she took over. As she brushed her hand over the growing bulge in his boxers, he moaned and pulled her back in for a heated kiss, his body trembling in anticipation when she continued to tease with her fingertips while pushing down his pants as much as space would allow. With one hand free, he pushed her dress up the final few inches above her hips and pulled her hand away, and in an attempt to relieve the pressure building his groin he pressed against her.

The lack of space worked in their favour when it came to the rutt of their hips, a longing moan matched from them both as he strained against her. He knew he was hitting her clit when she gasped into the kiss, pushing up harder against him and he moved with her desire, grinding his erection against her covered clit in desperation for something.

“Oliver,” she grunted impatiently, breaking the kiss with an arch of her back before her hands moved to his boxers. They were an obstacle now, preventing the feel of skin on skin, and they both needed them out of the way. While she tugged them out of the way with frustrated whimpers, he merely pushed her flimsy strip of lace aside and pushed a finger up into her.

Her back almost bowed off the seat, pressing her upper body into his as he worked his finger within her. She was wet enough that it slid in with ease, and he was too distracted by the breathy moans leaving her lips as he pushed a second finger into her to focus on what her hands doing, so the touch of her cool hand against his bare length made him still for a moment, arousal flooding his brain and making him lose control. The resulting jerk of his body made his fingertips brush a sensitive spot within her and god, he swore he’d never even imagined that noise leaving her lips before.

He needed it again. He needed more.

He throbbed in her hand as he worked her with his fingers, biting into the kiss as an encouragement. She was tight around his fingers and his cock ached in her hand with the thought of being buried deep within it, but he could feel her relaxing around his fingers as he stroked at her inner muscles. It didn’t shock him that she was loud in her pleasure - after all, she never stopped talking - but it did shock him that she was generous with the use of his name, that she wasn’t afraid to ask for what she wanted, well demand it, and he kept pushing her until she was quaking in his arms, crying out into the kiss as he felt her release pooling in his palm.

He didn’t let her come down from the high before he was pulling her hand away from him and placing it on his shoulder. She was still writhing her hips through her orgasm as he positioned himself better between her legs and pushed inside her with a slow thrust. He silenced her next moan with his lips, knotting his tongue around hers because he didn’t trust what he might say if he didn’t occupy his mouth. She was still rippling and tightening him around him as he filled her, and it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Oliver could feel her body adjusting to the change between his fingers and his hardened length, the way she rocked into him the same way she had pushed back against his fingers, and the moment she whimpered with impatience he started to move. He’d thought about this before - however unintentionally - and he imagined slow, imagined them moving together, and he definitely hadn’t pictured the lack of control that followed when her leg raised to cradle his hip.

He pulled out enough just to thrust back hard into her, she cried out, sinking her fingernails into his shoulder, but she didn’t fight him on it. She was already spiralling towards another orgasm, right off the back off her last one, and despite the fast pace they managed to match pace. It didn’t take long for the two of them to reach their peak, and Oliver could feel the white-hot heat searing through him as she started to ripple around him. He held her thigh against his hip, pinning her in place beneath him so he could thrust harder into her.

She fell over the edge first, and this time it wasn’t with a cry but with a short scream of his name and certainly no regard of the public setting. She tightened around him and he slid easier into her the wetter her orgasm made her, he didn’t think he’d ever been with a woman who came as hard as she did. But she shifted, pressing her own fingers against her clit to heighten the pleasure and send her flying into a more forceful orgasm immediately after, and it was that which send Oliver headfirst into his orgasm. He ground his hips against her as he filled her, stuttered thrusts filling her until the wave started to ease of into lazy kisses between their pulsing bodies.

But then the car door was pulled open, and everything went dark.

–

When Oliver came too, he was staring at his own I.D. badge. They’d been made. Everything he could remember was lost in Felicity, and then darkness. They had been followed. They’d been watched, and they’d let their guard down enough that they could be taken. There was pain radiating from his chest, pressure he tried to push away, and the pressure fought back.

“Queen, stop moving!”

Her. Smoak. She’d been taken too.

She was pressing her hands into his chest, pressing against the pain that was choking, and he gasped in a breath instead of attempting to say her name, grabbing at her wrist. It was wet. Blood. That iron-taste that filled his mouth and when he tried to swallow, he couldn’t.

“Stop moving!” she told him, her voice far more desperate.

“Felicity.”

“They stabbed you three times. I…I can’t stop the bleeding,” she said with a shake in her tone. “No one’s coming.”

He understood what she was telling him. They had no back up. No protection. No medical supplies. He’d been stabbed and it had clearly hit something vital because everything hurt, and he was…dying. He wasn’t going to make it.

He gripped her wrist tighter. “Run,” he told her. “Go. You have to go.”

“No,” she insisted, her hand closing over his. “You’re my partner, I’m staying. We go in together, we come back out together, right?”

His head falls back against the ground. “Right,” he muttered, because he was tired and it hurt to fight with him, and he never won with her anyway. She was always right.

It was her face he saw last. When he couldn’t breathe, when the blood spilled past his lips and everything was fire and pain, he could at least see her face. In another time, he’d have mocked her tears, called her a girl and told her to toughen up. But he was dying. He was dying, and at least he’d had a chance to taste her, to feel her, so when he pulled her down for one final moment of weakness he doesn’t regret it as much as he regretted the tears on her cheeks.

He only opened she could make it out before they caught her.

But he fell in love with her breaking protocol for him. Even if it was the last thing she did for him.


	21. Butler in the Buff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dedicating his to @scu11y22 HAPPY BIRTHDAY HON!!!!!!!

“Soooo….how does this work exactly?” she asks, drawing out the word because oh God, the awkwardness of her life right now may actually be killing her.

Maybe she’s having a stroke. She’s been reading up a lot about them because she heard about the new kid at a law firm who actually managed to stress himself into a stroke at the age of twenty-eight and she’s been working really long hours lately and then coming home and working a little more so she’s starting to be concerned about having a stroke.  

Can you have a stroke because of embarrassment?

“It’s pretty much as simple as the name,” Oliver tells her - Oliver, such a normal name, not that she was expecting something weird - as he slips his jacket off. “Butler in the Buff. I’m going to take my clothes off, and act as your butler.”

“…Like…whatever I want?” she checks.

“I am at your domestic service,” he says with a mock bow.

He’s wearing one of those fake bow-tie and shirt collars that doesn’t actually attach to a shirt. Why? Because under his jacket, he’s not wearing a shirt. He’s not wearing much of anything.

She can’t believe her friends brought her a cleaner for her damn birthday.

“I can clean if you want me to.”

She looks up sharply from Oliver’s very, very shapely abs and wow, you could eat food off of those and stop thinking, Felicity, you’re clearly talking out loud because he’s looking at you like a madman and —

“You’re nervous,” he notices, folding his hands in front of himself. “Look, you don’t have to be nervous about me. I’m…a normal guy.” She gives him a disbelieving look and he laughs a little. “You know my name. I’m Oliver. I’m twenty-six years old. I’m just trying to make some cash and have some fun.”

“What kind of fun?” she asks curiously because if this is a set up it doesn’t count as a birthday present.

He smirks at her. Damn that’s a good smirk. That’s the kind of smirk a girl dreams about seeing between her legs, not that she’s been having those kind of dreams, not that she’s intending on having those dreams about him but–

“Making cute girls blush,” he answers, and she can actually feels her cheeks heating up when he reaches for his belt and reveals what can only be a —

—thong. He’s wearing a thong. He’s going to clean her apartment in a thong.

“So…Felicity,” he says, walking towards her and standing an inch away as he adjusts his bow-tie. “Where do you want me?”

—

1 Text Received: from [Felicity]

_Thank you for getting me orgasms for my birthday._


	22. Everything Changed [Divorce AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: Hi, i wondering if you would be willing to write a fic based on the song ‘We wont by James Young & Phoebe Ryan’? You write angst really well and i think you’d be able to write this beautifully. <3
> 
> aussieforgood said: Oliver and Felicity are seperated / divorced and are not on the best of term…they keep arguing a lot. They share custody of their kid(s) and Ava tries to get them to get along and stop fighitng and maybe finds a way to get them back together (or not depends on how evil you feel)
> 
> frenchswissborder said: Ava and/or Tommy and/or baby #3 overhearing their parents fighting and worrying about them getting a divorce?

“Finally! Where have you been?”

She wrenched the door open and didn’t wait for him to enter. She just left it swinging on the hinges as she marched back into the kitchen, and Oliver had to hesitate before he followed her in, looking around at the mass of toys lining the entrance hall as he shut the door behind him with far more care than she’d had when she opened it.

“Sorry, the traffic into town was a nightmare,” he sighed as he followed her, hands slipping into his pockets as a habit - not to touch, not to drop his keys in the bowl, not to get too comfortable.

She didn’t even look at him as she leaned over her laptop, already typing away with a fury that told him she was working on a complex piece of code. “Well, maybe if you’d found somewhere to live in the city it wouldn’t take so much time to get here,” she snapped.

He fought not to bite back at her. “I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to shop around, Felicity,” he pointed out.

“Don’t you dare-” she started with a glare.

“Are the kids ready, or not?” he cut her off, not wanting to get into an argument today. He’d had enough of those with her lately, couldn’t remember what it was like not to have them.

“Yes, but I need them back by seven.”

His eyes snapped back to her from where he’d been reading Ava’s report card off the refrigerator. “We agreed nine,” he protested with a bitter undertone.

She looked up from her computer and shrugged. “Well, Tommy’s got swim class before school tomorrow and I need him in bed earlier,” she stated simply.

Oliver sighed, rubbing his temples as he fought not to explode and took a calming breath. “Why don’t they just stay with me tonight and I can take him to swim class and drop Ava in on the way through?” he suggested.

But she slammed her coffee mug back on the counter.“You were supposed to have them overnight last night, if you remember–”

“I told you, it was–”

“–an emergency, right. Because there’s always a convenient emergency in Central City whenever I desperately need you to take care of the kids,” she repeated incredulously with her arms raised in the air.

“Don’t paint me out to be a bad father,” he said in a low tone, his eyes narrowed not in anger, but in hurt.

She stared at him this time, really meeting his eyes. “You’re right, you were a bad husband.”

“…Ava, Tommy. Come on, let’s go,” he called up the stairs, striding out of the kitchen before he could say something he would regret.

—

He took them to the park on Sunday’s. It was cliche, especially since it was filled with the other weekend fathers, of which he’d become one. Worse still was the fact that the kids were starting to recognise and befriend the other children in the park. Luckily, they were at an age where making friends was the easiest thing in the world for them, but that didn’t excuse the fact that Oliver had become a part-time father to the two people he loved most in the world.

Ava had chosen not to run off to the swingset today, his seven-year-old opting to sit beside him on the bench instead with her Kindle while Oliver kept a keen eye on his son on the jungle gym.

“Why aren’t you playing?” he asked, leaning over slightly to see what she was reading. They’d been reading Harry Potter together before he…moved out (there was really no other word for it) and he hoped she hadn’t moved on to book four without him. He’d been looking forward to starting that one with her.

Instead, she closed the screen and turned to him with a serious expression. “Dad, we need to talk.”

His smile didn’t meet his eyes. “You sound like your mother when you say that.”

“Mom’s not happy,” she told him bluntly.

The words hit him like a strike to the chest. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re not happy either,” she added.

Neither was he. He didn’t like the kids thinking that he left because he wanted to, but he also didn’t want them holding it against Felicity for asking for him to leave. The decision for him to move out had been mutual, something they both realised was necessary when space was needed. “It’s a complicated situation, Ava.”

“You’re getting divorced, aren’t you?” she asked.

Oliver sighed, running his hand over his face. “I think we might be,” he confessed. He didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry, but he’d seen lawyers letters at the house last week, and he was considering asking Laurel for legal advice just in case - if Felicity hadn’t gotten there first.

“Does that mean we have to have two thanksgivings, and two birthdays, and two Hanukkah’s and two Christmases?” Ava asked.

Yeah, she knew all about it, he realised with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Half her friends parents were divorced. “I…think your mother will want to celebrate Hanukkah with you, and I’ll celebrate Christmas with you,” he explained. They’d raised the children with all the holidays so far, and that would be another thing they’d miss out on.

“I don’t like that.” Her tone wasn’t grumpy, it was sad. “I don’t like that you’ve thought about it.”

“Ava, I’m sorry,” he sighed, drawing his arm around her shoulder so he could tug her in against him. “I know a lot of things are changing, and changes can be hard, but sometimes it’s for the best. Sometimes it’s best for adults to be apart because they’re too unhappy to be together,” he explained.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she insisted.

“It is.”

“I think you love each other and you’re too stubborn to talk it through properly any more.”

“Did your Aunt tell you that?” he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“Everyone told me that.”

Oliver sighed again “Ava, what you have to understand, is that when you love someone as much as your mother and I loved each other–”

“You said you made a promise that you would love each other forever.” She reminded him. “You said that you promised to love me and Tommy forever too.”

“Ava-”

“If you stopped loving Mom, will you stop loving us too?” she cut him off.

His finger was beneath her chin quickly, tilting her face up so she could see the certainty in his eyes. “No. No, I would never stop loving you,” he assured her.

“But you used to say that to Mom too,” she pointed out.

“Ava-”

“I want you to come home, Dad,” she whispered.

It broke his heart, but what could he say? What could he do? The world wasn’t as simple as she made it out to be. “I wish I could come home, Ava, I-”

“Then come home,” she pleaded with him.

But he couldn’t.

“You should go and play with your brother, we have to get you back to your mother soon.”

—

When they arrived home, the kids went straight upstairs to the bedrooms. Ava hadn’t gained a better mood after their talk, and Tommy was ordered up for his pre-bedtime bath. Both went without a fuss, which gave Oliver a chance to take Felicity in. She jabbed her thumb to the kitchen, and he followed her in without a sound, letting her pull the door closed behind them so the children wouldn’t hear them. Along the way he noticed the lack of toys on the floor, everything seeming a little more in control around her.

She cleared her throat, setting her hands on the kitchen island that stood between them. “I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, when you came to pick them up,” she said quietly. “I just…I have a lot on my plate at work at the moment and the rumours about us aren’t making it any easier, and–”

He held up a hand to cut her off. “It’s okay, I think it was pretty deserved,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I was late, and I…let you down.”

“You were only ten minutes-”

“That’s not what I meant, Felicity,” he interrupted.

She fell into silence, the two of them watching each other over the same island he’d once laid her down and made love to her on when they first moved in. It seemed part of another lifetime now, as if he’d watched it in a movie instead of lived it.

“Oliver, please don’t do this now,” she pleaded quietly.

“Okay, but can we please talk about this soon?” he asked. He saw her jump to defence with that look in her eyes, the same one she’d given him when he started packing his back, and he waved a hand slightly. “It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow, or even this week. But today Ava asked me if we’re getting divorced and it was…like a bullet, that pain it gave me,” he confessed.

She swallowed, looking down before she answered. “Oliver, I don’t know if I can-”

“Please, can we just have a chance to talk?” he asked hopefully. “No kids, no distractions, just us. We used to work everything out better together, maybe our problem is that we’ve been trying to fix this while we’re apart,” he suggested.

She was quiet for a longer moment after that, looking down at the pile of sorted mail on the worktop, and he followed her gaze to the legal seal in the corner. Had that been what she was doing earlier? Had she been filing for divorce while he’d taken their kids to the park? Surely not…not so soon.

“You know, I was thinking earlier…I can’t even remember what the fight was about, the one that started everything,” she said softly.

“Me either,” he admitted. “So…what do you say?”

She nodded slowly, mulling the thought over, but he waited to respond until after she spoke. “My Mom’s taking the kids to the movies next Saturday,” she told him. “If you’re not busy, maybe you could-”

“I’ll clear my schedule,” he assured her.

“Oliver, you don’t have to-”

“Felicity,” he cut her off with a serious expression. “You…my family…you’re more important than anything else.”

She nodded. “She’s picking them up at eleven, so…eleven thirty?”

“Eleven thirty. I’ll be here.” Early. He had to be early. On time wasn’t good enough.

“Okay.”

The silence returned, and he followed her gaze to the bag in his hand. He lifted onto the counter and cleared his throat. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind. I uh…got these for Tommy. He’s nervous about this swim competition coming up, so we got him a new swim cap to boost his confidence.”

“You’re his father, Oliver. I don’t mind if you buy him things,” she pointed out with a small smile, taking it out of the bag and admiring it before she placed it on the pile of swimwear she’d set out ready for the morning session.

“I’m just…trying to do the right thing,” he explained, tapping his fingers on the edge of the worktop.

“Have we ever known what the right thing is?” she scoffed.

He shrugged. “Maybe not, but we’ve always figured it out in the end.”

“Maybe we’ll be okay too,” she suggested, and for the first time in months he saw a flicker of hope on her features. It sent a jolt of ‘please’ through him that had him looking forward to next Saturday as if she’d just agreed to a first date all over again.

“I hope so.”

“So, uh…you’ll pick them up from school tomorrow?” she asked, clearing her throat.

“Yeah, call me when you’re leaving the office and I’ll bring them home,” he noded.

She bit her lip. “Maybe uh, they could stay at yours tomorrow? If you wanted to take them to school the next day, that is…” she babbled.

“Really?” he asked, lifting his head with a smile he hoped wasn’t too eager.

“They both missed staying with you last night. They’d like it,” she nodded, before letting out a small, exhausted laugh. “And to be honest, I could use a night off.”

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded. “I’d love to. I’d…really love to.”

“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow then,” she said.

He fished his keys out of his pocket as he moved to the door. “Yeah, tomorrow…bye,” he said, as he left her at the door.

“Bye, Oliver.”

And just like she used to in the mornings, she watched him walk out to the car.

Hope is a thing with feathers, people said.

Oliver thinks hope is a little girl desperate to keep her family together.


	23. Housewarming [Single Parent AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> emmajadex1989 said: Hiya! LOVE your work!! Yay are prompts are open? Mine is Olicity AU where they are childhood best friends that love each other but one of them is a single parent and the other helps raise the kid and then finally admit to each other how they feel :) Thanks <3

“Auntie Liss, I need to ask you something very serious.”

Very rarely to they speak about very serious things. Sometimes they talk about things that are a little bit serious, but Emily Queen is mostly a fun-loving child who brings joy to everyone she speaks to. Felicity Smoak counts herself very lucky to be the highest on her list of favourite people, though she suspects that’s more to do with the fact that she’s the one who keeps her father in line.

“Oh, how serious?” she asks, putting down her coloring pens and giving the little girl her full attention.

“Like the most serious thing in the entire world,” Emily tells her.

Felicity folds her arms over the top of the kitchen table, nodding. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“When are you going to marry my Dad?” she asks.

Felicity looks away as she smiles. She’s been best friends with Oliver, Emily’s father, since they were children. Unlike friends who had moved away for college and never come back to Starling City, she had stayed all through her college years after Oliver had gotten a girl pregnant and tried to do the honorable thing.

Unfortunately, when he’d stepped up wanting to raise his kid, the mother hadn’t had the same approach, which had lead to her signing over all custodial rights and Oliver becoming the sole parent to his daughter. Ever since then, she’d supported him and helped out when he needed it - whether it was babysitting, tutoring through his college years, or just being a friend to his little girl who never knew what it was like to have a mom.

But her relationship with Oliver had changed over the years, she knew that. It was foolish to pretend they were just friends, but there was too much at stake for them to risk talking about the alternative. Emily, while being their biggest matchmaker, was their biggest risk, and neither would risk hurting her or getting her hopes up over something that wouldn’t work. She knew that because it was the same reason that Oliver never dated.

So when it came to Emily’s ever-important question, there was only ever one answer.

“When he’s awesome enough for me.”

“Fe-li-ci-ty!”

His voice floated up down the stairs in a frustrated tone, each syllable snapping through the air as she rolled her eyes, smirking when Emily matched the action and got up from the table. She avoided the boxes as best she could on her way up the stairs, a hazard of yesterday’s big moving day that hadn’t entirely been survived yet.

She made her way through to the room that Oliver was planning to use as a study - somewhere for him to focus on his gym business he was setting up with Tommy, and somewhere for Emily to focus on her homework now that she’d started school.

“What are you shouting about in —-oh my god!” she exclaimed, stepping back with her hand on her chest.

“Exactly, it’s-”

“What did you to the poor thing?!” she cried out, looking at her friend as he sat in the midst of scattered computer parts that had certainly not needed taking apart.

“Poor thing?” he repeated incredulously, his thunderous expression glaring up at her. “Felicity, this machine came out of hell.”

“It’s a computer, Oliver, and you’re ruining it!” she complained, marching over and trying to bat him out of the way.

He just stayed where he was, glaring up at her as he tossed the instructions aside. “You were the one that said this would be easy to put together!” he called out accusingly.

“I also said to wait until I was here to help you because you are a neanderthal,” she reminded him.

“Hey!”

“Oh, just move over. Let me do it!” she said, pushing his shoulder until he started to shift.

“I can do it,” he grumbled, reaching again for the box that the home computer had come and staring at the back of it which insisted it was an easy set up.

“You’re upsetting it,” she accused him, taking the box from his hands.

“It doesn’t have feelings, Felicity.”

She whipped around to him quickly, eyes narrowed as she plucked the instructions out of his hand and pointed at the door. “Okay, that’s exactly why you need to leave.”

He relented, turning on his heel and marching towards the door. “God, you’re lucky I love you.”

“You wish I loved you,” she muttered under her breath.

“I do, actually.”

She dropped the box in her hand, meeting his eye when he turned quickly with the startled realisation of what he’d just said.

“Wait, what?”

“What?” he stammered.

“Did you just-?”

“Stop talking?” he finished for her. “Yes, I did. I did stop talking before I said…that thing.”

“You said-”

“Nothing at all,” he finished her sentence again.

“Oliver-” she took a step towards him.

He cleared his throat, looking nervously towards the hallway. “I think Em’s calling me, I should…”

“She’s not calling you,” Felicity told him.

“Wow, you didn’t hear her? I should go…do that and you should…stay here and do this.”

“Oliver!” she called after him, but by the time she’d made it to the doorway he was already downstairs.

–

Two hours later she was still in the study room thinking about what Oliver had said earlier, albeit by mistake. It hadn’t taken her long at all to fix the computer system he’d been wrestling to set up, but she decided that since both he and Emily would be using it she’d set up the parental controls and download everything they needed to keep it running without calling her for everything. Halfway through, she heard Oliver putting Emily to bed, and she did turn from her chair briefly to say goodnight to the little girl before she focused back on the task at hand. But when she couldn’t avoid going back downstairs any longer she went off in search of Oliver.

She found him sitting on the back porch, which didn’t surprise her. The porch had been the main appeal of the house, leading out from the kitchen to the large backyard. He swung a beer bottle from his hand with another unopened beside him, and she cleared her throat as she opened the door to join him.

“Okay, so your computer lives,” she assured him.

He turned towards her with his usual smile. “Thank you. Beer?” he offered, holding the untouched second bottle out to her after twisting off the top.

“Thanks,” she said, taking it and easing down onto the step beside him. It was quiet for a few moments, before she took a deep breath. “So, we need to talk about that thing you said earlier.”

“Do we?” he winced.

“That depends, do you really feel that way, or were we just playing around?” she asked him.

That question made him drop into silence again, a silence that really didn’t suit him. He dropped his head slightly, running his hand over his hair and releasing a long breath. “Felicity, I…don’t think we’ve been playing around for a while now,” he said quietly, looking out at that vast garden.

She nodded slowly, picking at the label on her beer. “Maybe we never have been,” she agreed.

“You know I care about you,” he pointed out.

This time her nod had more purpose. “I know. I care about you too, Oliver. You and Emily.”

“She’s crazy about you,” he agreed.

She smiled. “She’s a good kid, Oliver, and that’s because of you.”

This time, she reached out and put her hand on his knee. Talking about Emily like this always gave him a sense of loss, a doubt that he wasn’t doing a good enough job with her, but she felt him sigh quietly when she reached out to him, and he looked at her hand instead of at her. “I promised myself when her mom left that I wouldn’t let someone walk into her life that was going to walk back out of it. That’s why I haven’t…been with anyone,” he explained carefully.

“I know, you’ve been with me most nights,” she pointed out, and she saw his face shift into a smirk before she realised what she’d said and felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “Not…with me, with me, but…you know.”

His smirk shifted into a softer, more hesitant smile. “What if I wanted to be with you every night?” he asked, lifting his eyes to hers.

“It wouldn’t be a huge adjustment, would it?” she pointed out.

“Not if we both wanted it,” he agreed with a small nod.

“I think Emily definitely wants it.”

He laughed at first, but then eyed her cautiously. “But do you?”

“Want this?” she checked.

“Want us. Me and her. As a family,” he offered.

Her hand squeezed into his knee, and when he turned his hand over hers, she gripped both of his tightly. “I consider you both my family already, Oliver. I always have.”

His head tilted slightly. “You know what I mean, Felicity.”

“Oliver…” she sighed, before she leaned in to brush her lips over his. It was a hesitant touch at first; soft and delicate, as they had always been with each other. When she pulled her head back, his eyes were closed, and he looked more relaxed that she was sure she’d seen him in a long time. “…is that a good answer? If I tried to speak words they might not come out that well,” she laughed nervously.

“Felicity…” he murmured, bringing one hand up to her cheek, his half-lidded eyes focused entirely on her as his lips returned to hers - not just once, but again, and again, until his tongue brushed against her lips and she parted them for him.

“Daddy, can I have some water?”

They broke apart, hands still clasped together despite the instant parting of their lips. Felicity imagined that the sheer panic that filled her at being caught by his daughter was similar to what their parents always thought they were walking in on.

“Emily,” Oliver stammered. “We were just…”

“Can you just get married now?” Emily asked in a bored tone. “I’m getting very tired of waiting to be a bridesmaid.”

While Oliver turned bright red, ducking his head, Felicity laughed in her direction. “Who said you’re getting to be a bridesmaid?”

Emily looked at her in sheer horror, no longer half asleep but clearly half devastated.“But…but you said I’m your best friend.”

She nodded with a knowing smile. “Exactly, and the best friends get to be the maid of honor.”

Emily grinned, but Oliver looked between them. “Do I get any say in this?” he asked them.

His daughter threw him a flippant look. “No, Daddy, don’t be silly.”

Oliver’s gaze went back to Felicity, tucking a piece of blonde hair behind her ear as his eyes sparkled a promise of getting right back to that kiss as soon as Emily was back in bed. She smiled back at him, a fluttering in her stomach that made her think of excited butterflies taking over her, and when he spoke next, the hesitance within her melted away.

“I’m all done being silly, don’t you worry.”


	24. Bringer of Heirs [League of Assassins AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elaine-spades said: How about an AU where Felicity is in the League of Assassins?
> 
> aussieforgood said: Prompt: Malcolm Merlyn (the new Ras) kidnaps Felicity because he want’s her as his concubine.
> 
> rosemariedavis said: “In your dream, you kept calling for this girl - Felicity. Who is she?” - Brainwashed! Felicity to Oliver (but happy ending-ish please, i need happy in life)

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

It pains him to ask, but he has to. He has to know if she knows who he is. He has to know how much of her he needs to bring back. It’s taken her weeks to find her, to track her down to this godforsaken place he’d never wished to come back to, but if this is the place she is then this is where he needs to be.

She steps close to observe him, to take in his features, and all he can think is that it’s been a long time she’s done this without the accompaniment of her gentle hand. There was once a time when her fingers would chase her eyes as they ran over his scars, his shoulder, his jaw, but today there is nothing. The light that exists behind her blue eyes is gone, replaced with something empty that is more sinister than the evil he expected to see there.

Malcolm took her just shy of a month ago, snatched her from him when he thought she was safest, and now he is a man back in front of the woman he loves, and she doesn’t know who he is.

“You have kind eyes,” she states. “Eyes like that don’t belong in a place like this.”

“I’ve been here before,” he tells her.

“I know,” she nods. “Al Sah-Him is a legend in these halls. Ra’s has told me a great deal about your accomplishments…and your failures.”

She adds the word as if she is trying to dispel him from attempting to escape. He couldn’t if he tried. Malcolm’s keeping him half-drugged in efforts to keep him complacent but aware, but he’s still chained to the floor of the cell he once spent a great deal of time in.

“And what does he call you?” he asks her.

“I haven’t received my name yet. He will grant me with it when I become his bride.” The words cut through him like the old Ra’s blade once did. He suspected it when he first knew it was the League that took her, because Ra’s must provide an heir, and Ra’s must have a suitable wife. A strong wife. A worthy wife. “You are unhappy about that news. Why?” she notices.

To his credit, he doesn’t reveal the true pain inside him and he merely raises his eyes back to hers. “Because you deserve better than him,” he mutters.

“That’s not the real reason,” she knew.

Even with so much knowledge stolen from her, she still knows how to read him.

“No, it’s not.”

“But you won’t tell me, because you don’t know me,” she understands.

“I used to,” he mutters, his voice resigned.

“And now?”

_And now, Malcolm’s taken you as his concubine._

_And now, you sleep at the side of a man who once tried to hurt us, a man you once hated._

_And now, you have been taken from me, and brainwashed._

_And now, you’re sleeping with a man who is not your husband._

“And now I’m not sure.”

–

“What do you dream about?”

He doesn’t see her the next day, but after the affirmation that Malcolm intends to take her as a bride his nightmares return to him. It doesn’t help that his darkest nightmares come from this place, it certainly doesn’t help that all his dreams involve her dying.

But she has noticed, despite the fact that he hasn’t felt her presence. He used to always feel when she was near him, or when she was too far away - perhaps he can’t detect when she is both.

“You’ve been watching me.”

“Ra’s wants me to assess how dangerous you are,” she says, closing the door to his cell behind her and kneeling on the floor, just out of reach. “He says you won’t hurt me.”

“I would never hurt you,” he confirms, his eyes taking in the deep red robes that she has dressed in.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she reminded him. “What do you dream about, Al Sah-Him?”

His stomach twists, because what he can feel is the presence of another person, and he is certain that person is Malcolm, standing just outside the door. “My dreams don’t belong to Ra’s,” he replied, his voice a rumbling growl.

“You call out for a woman. Felicity. Who was she?”

_My wife. My love. My everything._

“It’s a nice name.”

_It’s the name I whisper first every morning, the last before I sleep. It’s the one I know better than my own, the one that cements me to life, that keeps me grounded._

“You must love her very much,” she notes.

“She’s my wife. I love her more than anything,” he tells her.

“Where is she now?”

The words are poison to him, stinging at the wounds inflicted to him upon his arrival. “She was taken from me.”

“And you came here for the strength to reclaim her.”

“Something like that,” he muttered.

She cleared her throat, standing up from her place and smoothing down her robes. “You should stop looking. You will not find hope for her here,” she tells him, and there’s something in her voice that seems shaken, as if the tale of a man who would search for his missing wife has struck her, as if it touches the loneliness of the memories that have been stolen from her. “All that lies in these halls is abandonment.”

She thinks she’s been abandoned here, he realises. Malcolm’s told her she was unwanted, that she was given away, and then took her to his bed to show her that he would have a place for her. “I will never stop looking for her,” he said firmly.

“Then you will never know peace.”

–

“I dreamed of you last night.”

When she comes back a week later, he knows she’s been watching him. The curiosity of him speaking the name of his love keeps her coming - sometimes she’s subtle, sometimes she stands by his door within plain sight. This time, she is shaken. Her voice is trembling from the weight of her words and her eyes are rimmed with just enough crimson to match her robes.

“What did you dream about?” he asks her.

She swallows visibly, not taking her eyes off of him. “You called me by the name of the woman you love.”

“Felicity,” he speaks, and he sees her flinch. Though it’s not a flinch of fear or of pain, it’s an instinct, as if the sound of that name makes her want to reach for him. “Do you like when I call you that?” he asks her.

“Yes,” she confesses in a whisper. “But I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he assures her.

“I’m to marry Ra’s tomorrow.”

This time, he sucks in a breath. “Do you want to?”

“I’m supposed to give Ra’s an heir,” she mutters.

“But do you _want_ to?” he emphasises.

She’s silent as she looks around the room, suddenly flighty and jittery before his eyes. “I can’t remember what I want.”

“Felicity-”

“Stop.” This time her name takes her back to her feet, her hands coming up to her ears as if she can drown out what she already fears. “Stop, I have to stop. I need to stop.”

“Felicity-” he protests as she moves for the door.

“Don’t call me that,” she tells him before she leaves.

Before she leaves to marry Malcolm.

–

“What are you doing here? Are you— _is that_ —are you hurt?”

The next day he sees her, she’s covered in blood. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but there is blood on her hands and her face as if she’s seen hell and walked through the other side. She looks like a battlefield ghost, and her hands are still shaking when she falls to her knees before him. This time, she sits within his reach and leans into his hands when they touch her cheeks.

“I had to do it. He was going to—I _had_ to. I didn’t have a choice,” she weeps, placing her hands over his to stop their constant movement.

“Are you hurt?” he repeats.

“I killed him, Oliver,” she whispered.

His eyes widen, and a long breath leaves his body, one of hope, one of longing. “You… you used my name.”

“I couldn’t marry him. I’m married to _you_ ,” she whispered, tears streaming through the blood on her cheeks. This is his Felicity, he realises. Whatever has happened, she has come back to him, and at recognition of that he sees the true horror cross her features. “He made me…. _oh god_ , I was his… I betrayed you.”

His hands hold her face tighter, shaking his head. “Tell me he didn’t hurt you. Please, just-”

“I killed a man,” she repeats.

“He would have killed you, Felicity,” he reminds her with a firmness he’s had to remind her of before.

“I _betrayed_ you, Oliver. I was his-”

He stops her, shaking his head. “You weren’t in control. It was forced.”

But there’s repulsion on her face, almost making her back away from him. “I _let_ him-”

“No, you didn’t,” he repeats, smoothing back her hair and placing his lips to her forehead. “Let’s go home.”

“Home,” she repeats with a nod. “Please.”

“Always.”


	25. Someday In Bali [High School AU]

Felicity buries her father on a sunny day in June.

The sun is shining. Go figure. The sun is out, there’s not a cloud in the sky, there are birds chirping in the tree and it just feels…wrong. This isn’t a funeral. This isn’t a sad day, really. Today is the first day in weeks that it hasn’t rained in this poor excuse for a Starling summer, and the sun even feels warm on her hands - just her hands, everything else is covered by the black cardigan. He mother spent three days trying to find a suitable black dress to wear for today, but Felicity? Her wardrobe was dominated by black already, it wasn’t hard.

But still, she’s burying her father. And it’s…easy. It’s a nice day, and it shouldn’t be, because she loves her father very much and the absence of him should feel like a weight.

All she can think is that he’d be standing at her side, eyes closed and face turned towards the sun, telling her what a beautiful day it was, and really she should get away from the computer and come outside.

She’s watching as they lower his casket into the ground and there’s nothing in her mind but the last time she saw him. She doesn’t remember what meeting he was going to, or what product he was pitching, or even he was saying, but she remembers her mother fussing over the uneven tie that needed straightening and then he went rought out the door, and he was gone. Gone like the laughter in their home.

A hand slips into hers as she watches her father’s casket vanish from sight. It isn’t her mother’s hand, she knows without looking that her mother is too busy sobbing into her coat sleeve on her other side, but she knows this hand well. The skin is rough, calloused but still gentle. She doesn’t need to turn her head to know that this is the hand of her best friend.

Hours later, when the house is filled with family members and her father’s friends she’d rather not talk to, that same hand leads her upstairs to her bedroom and closes the door behind them. No one would bother time, no one ever does. Everyone is looking at Donna like a broken doll as she fusses over entertaining guests that want to care for her instead. Felicity blends into the background and she intends to stay that way.

Oliver, however, has his entire focus on her. He goes over to the bed that she has pushed up against the wall, shuffling up to the headboard with his back propped up to it, and tugging his tie loose. She can’t help but twitch her lips into a grimace of a smile that he’d even worn one. He hates ties. Hates wearing a suit. She guesses that his father was the one who forced him into wearing it. He pats the space next to him and she crawls into it, kicking off the shoes that had pinched her heels a little too much.

“Sorry I was late,” he mumbles as he flings an arm around her shoulder.

“Wish I could have been late,” she replies when her head effortlessly finds his shoulder.

Wish I didn’t have to be there. Wish he was still alive. Wish I wasn’t fifteen and burying my father. Wish he hadn’t taken that road. Wish he hadn’t been caught in that accident. Wish he hadn’t been one of eight funerals taking place that day.

“My grandparents want us to go back to Nevada,” she tells him, her eyes on the discarded shoes rather than him. “They don’t think my Mom’s going to break out of the depression.”

He snorts from beside her. “It’s been six days, she’s allowed to be depressed.”

“Yeah, well…” she sighs. “If they have it their way, we’ll be leaving at the end of the week.”

“Vegas?” he asks.

“Home sweet home,” she drawls sarcastically.

“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” he decides, shifting a little so he’s lying down and tugging her with him so they’re facing each other on the mattress. “We’ll have to run away together.”

He’s said this before. She usually hits him on the shoulder and tells him to stop being stupid, but today…today she’s buried her father and her childhood along with him, today she’ll humor him. “Where would we go?”

“Anywhere,” he says.

He takes her arm, pulling it around his shoulders so he can slip his arm around her waist. There’s no space between them now, there’s only his chin against her hair the scent from his neck right by her nose.

“I would run away with you,” he tells her, quieter, more truthful than before.

“I know,” she whispers back, sighing against him. “One day, maybe.”

“Where shall we live?” he asks her.

“Somewhere warm,” she decides.

He nods against her, his arm tugging her closer. “Okay, somewhere warm. So, you and me on a beach in Bali, how does that sound?”

“Perfect,” she nods, burying herself away in him.

“Or, better still…” he tempts her, his head lifting from her hair so that he could see her face again. “Just in case you do go back to Vegas…we finish school.”

“Oliver…”

“We get our diplomas, we go to college. But we find each other, okay?” he tells her. “When we’re adults and they can’t keep us apart any more. We find each other, we get a nice house, a big back yard, a damn good internet connection..”

She breaks a smile at that. “So, no Bali?” she asks.

“We’ll honeymoon in Bali,” he teases, drawing a soft laugh from her. “The point is, we find each other,” he assures her. “No matter how far we get torn apart, we come back to each other every time.”

She nods while he pushes the hair back from her face, and she closes her eyes when he leans down to kiss her. It’s not the first time they’ve kissed - they’ve always had a ‘thing’ - but this is the first time that it makes her realise that this isn’t a friendship. This is something stronger and something that makes her heart pound. This is not just a brush of lips, it’s deeper and more meaningful. She can feel his hands clutching at her, firmer than usual as they try to assure her that he will find her if she has to leave. She knows that this kiss is the most intimate moment they’ve ever shared, but this won’t move any further - someday maybe, but not on the day that she buries her father.

But she’s content now, away from relatives exchanging old memories of a man she’ll never see again. She’s content and comfortable in her best friend’s arms, and she feels safe when his lips steal touches to her own, to her cheeks, to her jaw.

So she stays in the warm, and hides away in the thoughts of Bali, in the warmer place that waits for them.


	26. Us Against The World [High School AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because @mymusiclove101 requested more of Someday, In Bali

They once agreed they’d honeymoon in Bali, but that wasn’t quite the case.

Separation wasn’t kind for them. They pined in their own ways, Felicity by burying herself to her research and Oliver in alcohol and things he certainly shouldn’t have been on the news for. She saw each story, worried about the images of him slurred and grinning like a fool, and knew she’d get the phone call the next day - the “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was doing” and “I can’t do this anymore, I’m getting the next bus out to Boston” - and she’d spend an hour talking him down so he wasn’t dropping out of college to be with her.

But they survived. They survived because they were loyal, because everything was for each other, whether they spoke for hours on a Sunday afternoon or exchanged a quick text between classes. No one else was a temptation, no one else even came close.

He first told her that he loved her when she came home from the holidays. She said it back three seconds later. They agreed to wait to have sex. They fooled around some, and both wanted it as the years went on, but it became clear to each other that once they gave that precious part of one another, they wouldn’t be able to part again.

Oliver, ultimately, didn’t complete college, despite several attempts. Felicity graduated a year early. To celebrate, they went to Bali.

More specifically, they went to Bali with a ring box in Oliver’s luggage.

This time, when they curled into one another in the bed, it was in a hut suspended over the ocean, something that looked so idyllic it was almost better than the photos they’d seen online. It was an expensive trip, but Oliver had recently come into his inheritance and she’d received a very generous graduation gift from her grandparents, so they’d decided this treat was worth it.

Felicity curled her finger over his chest, tracing patterns over his bare chest. It had been unspoken that they’d end up sleeping together at last on this trip, but their first night had left them exhausted from the long travel that once they’d fallen into the comfortable bed, they’d been asleep in moments.

Oliver hummed, coming to wakefulness slowly as he reached up and grabbed her hand, blindly bringing it up to his lips before he linked it with his own. “I could get used to waking up next to you,” he murmured in an early-morning rumble.

“You better,” she teased lightly, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Sleeping?” he laughed slightly.

“Yeah, I’m real good at it.”

He laughed again, rolling onto his side and taking her with him and pinning her beneath him as he pressed lazy kisses the ticklish spots on her collarbone. “So, tonight…” he started, lifting his attention back to her sleep-mussed hair.

She raised an eyebrow, bringing her arms up around his neck. “Tonight, huh?”

“Yeah,” he breathed out, brushing his lips over hers. “Tonight.”

She let out a long breath, and he was close enough to feel the shake in it. “Tonight,” she repeated.

“Nervous?” he asked, returning his lips to her jaw and making a path back down her throat. It brought a delicious sound from her, but she was still nodding. “Nothing to be nervous about,” he assured her lightly. “It’s just us.”

“Yeah, but… “ she sighed, closing her eyes tightly. “It’s stupid, it’s not like we haven’t done basically everything else.”

“I’m nervous,” he confessed.

“I thought there was nothing to be nervous about,” she pointed out.

He lowered down onto his forearms over her. It pressed him against him in ways that drove him wild, but her smile was far more deserving of his attention in that moment. “I just want to make sure you enjoy it,” he told her. “That’s all that matters.”

Her leg shifted, lifting around his waist. He’d decided last Easter that this was his favourite place to be in the world - between the legs of his girlfriend. “So what’s the plan for today?” she asked.

“Scuba diving this morning, then a walk this afternoon,” he told her, punctuating each part of the plan with a kiss. “Then dinner on the beach, and then back here to bed so I can discover every way I plan on satisfying you for the rest of our lives.”

She hummed as his lips brushed a sensitive spot beneath her ear. “Rest of our lives, huh?”

“Uh huh,” he agreed.

“Is that what that little jewellery box in your luggage is all about?” she asked curiously. His head whipped up and she just laughed. “You suck at keeping secrets from me,” she reminded him.

He shook his head in defeat, flashing her a confident smile. “I’m going to ask you tonight at dinner.”

“You’ve really got big plans for the night,” she noted.

“I hope you plan on saying yes,” he added. “Or it might put a real damper on the evening.”

“Maybe I’ll say no,” she teased.

“Liar,” he laughed, planting a firmer kiss on her lips. “You suck at keeping secrets from me.”

“Guess I’d better practice my surprised face,” she teased, turning the kiss languid as they fought the need to get out of bed.

Later, as they walked around the island and found a secluded area, he did manage to see her surprised face when he dropped to one knee and proposed to her. She said yes, naturally, and when they finally gave themselves to each other that night, all she wore was his ring.


	27. Between the Shelves [Bookstore AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> allsun said: Could you make an au where Felicity is the owner of a bookstore that Oliver’s daughter is forget it by Thea
> 
> fangirl-logic said: Anything goth!felicity

When Felicity had opened her book store three years ago, she had prepared herself for dealing with parents of young kids. As the only specialty children’s bookstore in the Starling City center, it was hard not to deal with the parents as much as the kids. The kids were a handful in themselves; always taking books off the shelves and leaving them on the floor, or in entirely different places, some of the rowdier ones even tearing the pages - but the parents were a whole other ball game.

They were demanding, frantic, rushed - always blaming her if some specialty books or rare editions weren’t immediately available - but she didn’t mind that. It was easy for her to plaster a smile on her dark purple lips and force the customer service politeness that no one expected from the girl with dark hair and purple streaks.

So that afternoon was no different. A few customers perused the shelves in the front section of the store and she was making her arrangements to close up for the night when a man in a sharp suit looking entirely out of place in her tiny bookstore came rushing up to the cashier unit she stood at.

“Hi, excuse me, my name’s Oliver Queen, I called about–”

“Oh, you’re Natalie’s dad!” She cut him off with a bright smile.

A look of sheer relief fell over the man’s face. He looked in his late twenties, older than her and at least a clear foot taller, or more. For all his attire screamed well-kept business man, his tie was loosened and his shirt collar uneven as if he’d been in this frantic state for a while. She hadn’t seen him here before, but the child in question was a regular visitor. “Oh, thank god. She’s here?”

“Of course, come with me, she’s in the back room,” Felicity nodded, stepping around the counter as the last few customers left the store. Gesturing for him to follow her, she passed the main bookshelves towards the small alcove that lead to the back room.

“I’m so sorry, my sister was watching her and she ran off and-”

“Don’t worry, we’re used to Natalie in here,” she assured him.

“You are?” He asked with a clear confusion.

“Yeah, she always comes in here to read the books,” Felicity grinned. “She likes the pictures on the walls.”

He went to speak again, but stopped when they went into the back room. Here, she used it more as a sanctuary than a stock room. There were some of her better children’s collections here, along with several reading chairs and a few tables. In all, it looked like a small library-slash-school room, exactly as she planned. The walls were adorned with paintings of fictional characters overlapping in several scenes that were entirely crossovers (her favourite being Harry Potter dueling with Merlin himself). Everything was ignored, however, in favour of the sandy-haired little girl curled into one of the armchairs with a large pop-up book of jungle animals sprawled over her lap.

“I…Natalie, thank God,” he rushed forward, watching his daughter close her book with a happy little swing of her pigtails.

“Hi, Daddy,” she chirped.

“You and I are going to have a long talk when we get home about running off,” he warned her, his voice stern.

In response, her face fell and she looked down. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he repeated in the same tone.

“But I was being good!” She protested, gesturing by slapping her hands down on the cover of the book which made Felicity hide a wince. “I was just reading.”

He sighed, dipping his head as he tugged her hands away from the book and held them in his own. Felicity had to suck in a breath and distract herself but tucking her hair behind her ears, toying with her industrial piercing when she found herself noticing the way Natalie’s tiny hands looked in the larger palms of her father. “And I don’t want to discourage you reading, but running away from your aunt in a busy place was the wrong thing to do. We’ve been worried sick, Natalie, we thought something terrible had happened to you,” he told her, his stern tone softening into something endearing.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, dipping her head down.

“It’s not me you should apologise to,” her father told her, ducking his head so she couldn’t avoid his gaze. Wow, Felicity thought to herself, he really had the scolding down well considering he’d rushed in frantically. “You should be apologising to your aunt, and you should be thanking this nice lady for her time, shouldn’t you?”

With the attention back on her, Felicity startled a little. She certainly hadn’t expected that, but that certainly rocketed them to the top of the ‘best customers’ list. Not that she had a list, of course, maybe she should start one but not right then. Not the time, Felicity, she told herself, as Natalie’s attention zeroed in on her, and she drew her hands up into her netted sleeves before the little girl spoke.

“Thank you, Licity.”

“You’re welcome, but no more running off to come here,” she warned her, stepping forward to the side of the chair with what she hoped (and failed to administer) was as authoritative a tone as the girl’s father was using. “Otherwise you can’t go on the list for big school book club, okay?”

He looked up at her, raising up to stand upright again so he was looking down at her by the time his sentence was finished. “Big school book club?”

She nodded, gesturing to one of the posters for the activity on the wall. “It’s this after school thing we run on Thursdays. We get a lot of kids in here and a lot of parents who don’t really have much time to do much more than grab a random book and run, so we got permission this year for an after school book club, and…yeah, I should stop rambling about it, the words are starting to stop making sense,” she cut herself off with a nervous laughter.

Natalie’s father, however, gave her a broad grin. God, he had dimples, that was far too adorable on a grown man. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Really? Natalie’s aunt put her on the waiting list for it the first day we announced it,” she explained.

“Nat would love it,” he nodded, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. “She’d…really love something like that,” he repeated in a smaller tone.

“She’s a really clever girl,” Felicity praised.

Her father laughed, ducking his head and wow - was that a blush? “I wish I could say she got that from me, but… sadly not,” he chuckled. “We just have a lot of books in the house, so she loves to read.”

Her eyebrows raised, a smile spreading over her face. “You like books?”

His face twisted into an awkward expression. “My family collect antique books, so it’s more that we have them and don’t get to enjoy them…”

At the word ‘antique’, Felicity felt her heart flutter. She’d guessed from the Queen family name that they probably had books at home in a beautiful library setting but she hadn’t dared to hope that she’d ever meet a member of the Queen family who ever wanted to talk about books.

“I have a first edition Harry Potter,” Natalie contributed with a grin.

Felicity directed her smile away from the man before her with the sudden remember that there was a child present.  “Wow, that’s incredible.”

Natalie’s father glanced around the room, paying attention to the artwork. “These are the paintings you talked about?” He asked, giving an impressed nod. “I can see why kids like it in here.”

“Thanks,” Felicity grinned, feeling her cheeks flush. “I just wanted to brighten it up a bit.”

“You did these?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

He let out a small huff of disbelief, but his smile didn’t fade. This time he looked directly at her. “You’re really talented.”

Yep, she was definitely blushing now. She could feel her skin burning under his gaze and wow, his eyes were so blue. “Thank you.”

“Daddy, you’re smiling funny. Are you flirting?”

Natalie’s voice was filled with an innocence that had them both jumping several inches apart, unaware of how close they’d be standing. “Natalie!” Her father scolded.

“Auntie Thea says it about time,” Natalie chirped.

“Natalie, stop it,” he said with a small hiss in his tone.

Natalie turned her attention to Felicity, not at all deterred by her father’s tone. “Auntie Thea says Mommy did a real number on him, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

He ran his hands over his face, throwing her an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry, she just…talks all the time….”

“What a coincidence, so do I,” Felicity agreed with a nervous laughter.

He smiled again, but cleared his throat. “Well, I have to go ground my daughter now, I should… thank you, and sorry, again, I’m sure you’re really busy and…” He trailed off, looking at the very empty store.

“It’s fine,” Felicity assured him with a wave of her hand. “She’s actually been helping me put some books away, she’s been no trouble at all.”

“Why don’t I leave you my number?” He offered.

Wait, what?

“Excuse me?” She squeaked.

“In case she…appears here again,” he stammered, rubbing his fingers again in a show of nerves. Then we can cut out the mad security run and…”

“Oh! Of course, that’s a good idea,” she nodded, folding her arms in front of her. “Not that you meant…anyway, yes. Good idea. Also for book club reasons,” she pointed out.

“And maybe I could thank you for today?” He added, with a quick swipe of his tongue over his lips. “For keeping an eye on her, I… would like to take you to dinner or coffee or…”

Oh God, he was asking her out. Oliver Queen was asking her out. To dinner. Wait, was her heart still beating?

“Well, I usually work til late,” she murmured regretfully. “I’m the only one here and…”

“Oh,” he muttered, seeming a little deflated. “Right. Of course, it was-”

“But I always close for lunch,” she suggested with a hopeful yet apologetic smile. “At twelve-thirty.”

“Right,” he agreed, nodding as the smile returned to his face. “So…lunch sometime? Friday, maybe?” He asked her.

“Friday,” she nodded. “It’s a date. Not a date-date but a-”

“Well, usually with lunch there’s the implication that…”

“Oh. Right,” she said, with a bright smile.

“If you’d like to, that is,” he added.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Yeah, I’d like to.”

“Okay.”

“Daddy, you’re smiling weird again,” Natalie told him as she slipped out of the chair and took his hand obediently.

Rather than scold her, he tightened his grip on her hand and bent to lift her backpack from the floor beside the chair. “Come on, let’s go home,” he told her as they left the back room and entered the main room of the store.

“If you got a date, am I still grounded?” She asked hopefully.

Felicity laughed as she followed them, but Oliver’s answer was swift. “Yes.”

Natalie whined. “But Dadddddd-”

He paused at the exit. “Goodbye…” he started, trailing off when he realised he hadn’t even asked her name before he’d asked her on a date.

“Felicity. Smoak,” she told him.

He nodded, smiling softly. “Goodbye, Felicity.”

And so, the father and daughter duo left the bookstore, leaving Felicity to hover in the doorway as she waved goodbye to the little girl.

“Bye, Oliver.”


	28. Shutter Speed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @yet-i-remain-quiet said: First of all, I absolutely love your stories! I think there amazing. I’m not sure if you’re taking prompts right now, but if you are, would you be able to write one where Felicity is a model and Oliver is the photographer, he’s in love with her. Seeing all the BTS vids of EBR’s photo shoot, makes me picture that. And I think you’d write something amazing

“That’s great, _perfect_. Just a few more.” 

He’d said that four times already, and she didn’t believe him this time. But still, who was she to complain? Everyone in the industry wanted to work with Oliver Queen. He was the best photographer in the country to those who worked in the right circles, and fortunately for Felicity Smoak, she could now count herself in one of those circles.

Her employment in modelling had come as an opportunity she hadn’t expected. Her close friend Iris had taken her to a few parties with her work colleagues, who were all at least a foot taller than her before the ridiculously high heeled shoes they were wearing, and after a few ‘ _have you met my friend?_ ’s and ‘ _doesn’t she have great bone structure?_ ’s, she had a shoot lined up. And then another, and then another.

And then another. With _Oliver Queen_.

Oliver Queen was everything that everyone built him up to be - a fantastic threat to her vow to swear off men for at least a year after the mess of her break up with Cooper. He was handsome in a way that made her want to drop to her knees in front of him and put far too many stereotypes to shame. Those eyes were a kind of blue that shouldn’t legally exist, and she was grateful for the camera separating them considering that he worked alone and temptation was far too great.

The constant ‘click’ of the camera was something she was used to by now, but she still found it hard not to worry that each photo had captured a flaw. She was used to other photographers giving direction, but Oliver had simply given her a selection of swimwear to choose from and told her to move however suited her.

She’d chosen not to question it. He was the best in his field for a reason.

“You’re a natural at this,” he declared with an air of surprise as he glanced at the last photo he’d taken.

Her eyes directed to him with surprise. “What?”

“Wells was right,” he continued, assuring himself with a satisfied nod before he looked back at her. “Beauty _and_ natural talent. Let me tell you that doesn’t always come hand in hand with most models.”

 _Most models_. She fought the urge to roll her eyes, because she certainly didn’t fit into the category of _‘most models’_ , and she didn’t need a photographer to tell her that no matter how famed he may be. For starters, she was always the shortest person in a room, and was the only person who’d turn up half in her pajamas. She was far from normal in this industry, she didn’t fit, she stuck out like a sore thumb under every circumstance.

But he’d made it a positive thing. And _dammit_ , it made her blush.

“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said, taking one of the summer hats from his set up of accessories and putting it down loosely on her head. “But not true. The only thing I’m natural at is being a natural disaster,” she added under her breath.

“I don’t lie,” he said, turning back to his camera and adjusting the lens before angling his body to snap at his next photograph.

He didn’t lie, that was another part of his reputation. It came across as charm, as arrogance, but it was all him. She could see that he just knew how to get his job done with minimal fuss, - and well with models there was always a lot of fuss about everything. Maybe that was why he liked her, because she’d come in, did as she was told, and didn’t make a fuss. She didn’t complain about the outfits, she just got changed when she was told to, posed for the camera, and took home a paycheck that chipped away at her student debt a little more with each job.

So she told herself it was just getting the job done that she ended up in racier poses, in more revealing shots. It wasn’t as if she had to worry about anyone seeing these images, given that her mother had no idea what these shots were used for and that the rest of her social circle had taken far more intimate shots.

It felt intimate though. _Too_ intimate. Especially when she found herself on her back, arms draped behind her, and Oliver leaning over her prone form with just his camera and thick, heavy air between them. He focused on everything she had never considered to be beautiful - the arch of her back, the curve of her neck, even the way her hair would brush against her spine. He seemed to be move closer and closer with each snap, and they were very quickly running out for room, and Felicity was running out of patience but she wasn’t sure what for–

“Okay, we’re done,” he told her, pushing himself up from his kneeled position but not without supporting his lift with a hand on her knee.

He was heavy. That’s why she made that small grunt.

Okay, maybe Oliver Queen didn’t lie, but she _had_ to lie or she was going to get into some serious trouble with this man.

“Is that everything you needed?” she asked, sitting up and reaching for a wrap to place around her shoulders before she got all the way up off the ground.

“Technically, yes,” Oliver said, his attention fully on his camera as he tapped away at the screen.

Technically. Oh, god. She’d ruined it. She’d been unprofessional somehow. She’d been looking at him when she should have been looking into the camera. The apologies were streaming from her lips before she even had time to think what she was apologizing for.

“I’m sorry if I was terrible, this is only my third shoot and I _told_ Wells that Iris would probably be far better for your shoot, but he _insisted_ and—”

“I insisted, actually,” he told her, cutting her off as he put his camera down.

Right. Wait, _what_?

“ _I_ insisted,” he repeated, taking a few steps back towards her in her silence. “I saw you at the club last weekend and Wells told me you were one of his girls, so I requested you.”

“You… _requested_ me?” she repeated, her mind struggling to get around that thought when she was still trying to understand what a man like him had been doing looking at a girl like her at a club full of far more successful, far more attractive women. “ _Me_? Definitely me? Because there were a lot of blonde girls, and I’m sure you just made a mistake and–”

“I don’t make mistakes,” he reminded her. “It’s why I’m the best.”

Okay, that damn cocky grin was _definitely_ illegal. Banned. She couldn’t allow it. Not that she had any say in the matter because he was right there and definitely still grinning and she’s pretty sure any sense of being a semi-professional model had flown right out of the window with how she was gaping at him.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Felicity,” he told her, closing the gap between them and dropping his delicious smirk into a far more tempting smile that did things to her stomach. Things. Things she swore she didn’t want to feel.

Oh but it was there. Where was that camera? She needed it between them again. She needed the barrier there to keep herself from making a stupid, _stupid_ choice.

“I haven’t done this in a while, but if you’re wanting to build your portfolio, I’d be more than willing to take some private shots for you,” he offered.

Her eyes widened. “ _Private_ shots?” she repeated, hoping it didn’t come out in as much of a squeak as she imagined it had.

“Wells said you were a new girl. If you want the experience to back you up, I can help you out. In fact, I’d be grateful if you let me.”

Let him? Let him take private shots of her for her portfolio. Her portfolio was currently a few mismatched JPEGs on Wells’ hard drive that Iris had sneakily sent to her when she was helping him with some emails, and now she had Oliver Queen wanting to add more. He wanted to photograph her. Privately. Again. For nothing more than personal gain.

More so, she had Oliver Queen sneaking his hand onto her elbow and her skin burned beneath his touch. The heat from his palm was almost as scalding as the way he was watching her, the lust dripping from his eyes as he gaze down on her and this - _this_ \- was why models should definitely be tall because otherwise sex god photographers had way too much height on them. And instead of pushing him away, she found herself craving more. She was leaning towards him, wanting to press herself into his head, to feel his hands in far more places than just her arm, and despite her intentions of swearing off men she let herself relish in the need of him.

“Think it over,” he tempted her, slipping his hand down to hers as he pressed one of his business cards against her palm.

And with a wink and a knowing smile, he stepped away from her, his attention back on his camera as he left her with privacy to get changed at her own leisure.

She couldn’t even pretend that she wasn’t going to call him.

_Fin_


	29. Happy Story [College AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thatsagentpeggycarter said: So, I don’t know if you’re taking prompts or not, but I would like to submit one for a future story/one shot. Oliver has had a crush on Felicity for ages; Felicity equally likes him. One day O overhears F talking got a friend saying “One day, I want someone to look at me and think ‘she’s my happy ending.’” O finally asks her out, and casually let’s skip that she’s his happy ending. (Can be college AU, or early on in the series.)

The party was dying down quicker than expected, probably because the host of said party was wrapped up in the presence of his new girlfriend. Usually, a Tommy Merlyn party didn’t wind down until the sun was coming up, but it was barely midnight when the other students were making their way out. It didn’t bother Oliver that much, as he spotted Felicity sliding on her jacket after a small group had left, clearly trying to make a quiet getaway from the party.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, taking her arm and leading her a few steps to the side as another couple went to leave.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” she chirped.

“You’ve been really quiet tonight,” he noted.

“No, I haven’t,” she frowned, tugging her hair out from her jacket.

He let out a sigh as he watched her hair settle around her shoulders. “Felicity…”

“It’s fine, really,” she insisted, her tone somewhat snapping as she cut him off.

But Oliver wasn’t having any of it. He knew her well enough to know when something was wrong. She didn’t have any papers due the next day, or any other place to be, so that wasn’t why she was sneaking out early. Something had made his friend grumpy, and he had to find out what it was. “Come on,” he decided as he grabbed his own jacket from the back of the couch. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

–

They ended up in the all-night diner just outside of the campus borders, in their usual booth with their usual order. Felicity had ordered the chocolate fudge sundae without nuts, and Oliver had gone for a side of fries, with a strawberry shake they’d inevitable end up sharing.

“So, talk to me,” he told her, when their food was put aside and they had no other distractions.

She shook her head, leaning back in her seat with a slump. “It’s stupid.”

“So was that story about the old man and his dog, but you couldn’t wait to tell me about that,” he pointed out.

Her back straightened in defiance as her jack slackened. “That wasn’t stupid, that was-”

“Stupid,” he insisted. “Come on.”

She sighed, sitting back again as he fingers began to tear at a napkin. “Okay, but don’t think I’m weird.”

“I don’t have to. I know you’re weird,” he pointed out with a knowing smile. “Why else would you be friends with me?”

“I tell people it’s for charity work,” she dead-panned.

“Like the Big Brother program?”

“No, like a seeing-eye-dog to stop you walking into walls when you’re drunk.”

He held up a finger. “I did that once.”

“Still, it left a lasting memory,” she shrugged.

“It did not.”

“Well, not with you, you had a concussion.”

He sighed. “Can you stop changing the subject?”

“Fine,” she huffed, averting her eyes down to the almost shredded napkin. “I know everyone’s really happy for Tommy and Laurel but…”

She stopped, and in her silence he raised his eyebrows. “What, you’re not happy?” he asked her.

“I’m happy for them, but it’s hard to be,” she explained with a small shrug. “I want that.”

His gaze settled into a frown. “What…Tommy?”

“No.”

“Laurel?”

She looked up at him, an exhausted expression on her face. “Oliver, I’m being serious here.”

“Me too,” he explained, leaning on his forearms on the table so he was a fraction closer to her. “So, you want what Tommy and Laurel have?”

Again, she shrugged. “I’m not a grand romance kind of girl, but those two? They’re pretty epic,” she pointed out. “Think about it, we’ve watched them lust over each other for years and now they’re together they’re sickeningly sweet. I was starting to think they’d finally get together and it would be anti-climactic, but they look at each other like they’re going to want each other for the rest of their lives,” she explained quietly, with a sigh to her tone that was almost wistful.

He hummed his agreement. “Knowing Tommy, that’s probably true.”

“See,” she said with a wild gesture of her hand. “Who wouldn’t be jealous of that?”

He was, that was for sure. Tommy and Laurel were something epic, she was right about that. She wasn’t alone in watching them and wondering if he’d ever get his life-changing moment of love like they had. But Felicity? She wanted it so badly, he could see it in her eyes. She didn’t want to be sat in an all-night diner with a friend when she could be loved, so very, very loved.

“So, you’re looking for a boyfriend or…?”

She shook her head. ““I’m not going looking for it deliberately, but… I don’t know, see, it’s stupid,” she back tracked.

“It’s not stupid,” he assured her.

“Oliver-”

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, reaching over the table and taking her hand. “I know what you mean.”

“Really?” she murmured.

“You want to be happy.”

She raised her gaze to his once again. “Yeah.”

“You want to be with someone who’s happy to be with you,” he continued.

“Yeah.”

He flashed her the most assuring smile he could conjure. “Hey. Don’t worry, okay? You’re amazing, you’re gonna find that.”

“I hope so,” she smiled lightly.

“I know so.”

—

Years later, they were back in that same diner, in that same booth, this time on the same side of the table. Oliver’s arm was slung over the seat as he sat sideways, her leaning back against his chest and straight into the embrace he so easily offered her. With a nostalgic smile, he dropped his lips down onto the back of her head. “Do you remember being here, ten years ago?”

She laughed slightly. “God, we used to live in this place.”

“The night Laurel and Tommy got together,” he prompted.

She rolled her head slightly so she was looking right at him. “You mean the first night you kissed me?”

“I loved that night,” he grinned, trailing his fingers up and down her arm.

“It was a really good night,” she agreed, with a flush spreading over her cheeks.

“You know, I’d never woken up with a girl until then,” he recalled.

“And you didn’t even get laid” she pointed out.

“No, I got something better.”

“Something better than sex?” she replied with a mocking level of scandal to her tone.

He nodded, leaning in to place a gentle kiss against her parted lips. “I got to lie with you in my arms and know that I was never going to let you go, that everything I’d been hoping for was exactly what I wanted,” he explained, breathing his words into the minuscule space between them. “That was the night I knew I wanted everything with you…and now…you’re my best friend, the love of my life…and now you’re my wife.”

“Mmm, yes I am,” she agreed, knotting their hands together so their brand new wedding bands brushed against one anothers.

“That night you told me that you wanted to be with someone who was happy to be with you,” he remembered.

“And I have you.”

“Always.”

“I know you’re my happy story, Oliver,” she murmured, before she was patting his thigh to draw him back to the moment. “Now, come on. If we get home quick enough, we’ll be in time for another happy story.”

He blinked away from her, looking down at his wrist where his watch almost teased him with the idea of being home later than planned. “I didn’t realise how late it was.”

“Come on,” she encouraged, pulling out of his embrace as she slid her jacket back on. “I want to see Maya before she goes to sleep, and she loves your bedtime stories.”

Oliver stood, following suit as he left a few bills of tips on their table, taking his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call Thea and let her know we’re on our way.”

An hour later, they’d collected their four-year-old from his sister’s house and were tucking her into bed, telling her stories about their honeymoon that involved the group of monkeys they were watching on the beach. Maya was an addition to their lives that neither saw coming after graduate school, but she was something that neither of them would regret - even if she did delay their wedding by several years as they got adjusted to life with their little girl.

It was too soon for them to tell her that she was getting a brother or sister, especially when Felicity had only taken the test a few days into their honeymoon, but that didn’t dampen their excitement.

Ten years ago he’d taken a chance with his best friend. A chance to be her happy story.

He didn’t regret a single moment.


	30. Walk of Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a prompt by @ass-gardiann “We met on a Sunday morning, both doing our walk of shame”

He already touched most of her by the time he first sees her.

That sounds creepy, but it’s not. It’s not normal by any social standards, but he’s adamant that he’s not being a creep with that revelation. He’s also certain that it’s one hundred perfect normal.

When Oliver Queen first meets Felicity Smoak, they crash head on into one another in a hallway that isn’t their own. He’s still doing his pants up in a rush, his shirt haphazardly on and his hoodie shoved under his arm. She’s got half her shirt buttons missing, trying to hold it together frantically as they bump head-on into one another and half her dignity is on display for him.

He’s got to admit, it’s not a bad sight for seven o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Their eyes meet with a sense of panic, trying to ascertain what, exactly, was happening last night, and then it dawns on them.

“You were with the roommate,” she whispers at him, pointing to the door behind him with the hand that isn’t holding her shirt behind him.

Oliver tilts his head slightly, scrutinising her this tiny blonde woman before him. “Was that you screaming last night?”

“Hardly,” she scoffs before she can consider the issue of volume. “He’s not that good.”

He’s about to reply when a shuffling from the room behind her has her eyes widening in panic and them both bolting from the apartment.

Once they’re safely out of the danger zone of being caught, it occurs to Oliver that he’s not alone in ditching a one-night stand, but that he’s certainly the only one that seems to know what he’s doing. She pauses outside the door, and he’s four steps away before he realises she’s lingering. He tries to tell himself that it’s chivalry that has him wandering back to her, because surely she’s not going to walk home - wherever home is - with her shirt half-open and what appears to be only one shoe.

It’s not chivalry. She’s cute. He’s in a good mood. Might as well see what happens.

“What are you doing?” he asks her.

“Is that what you’re supposed to do?” she blurts out, gesturing at the door.

His confusion is written in his frown. “Are you done with the guy?”

“I think so.”

“Then yeah. Time to go,” he shrugs.”

“Just like that?” she blinks incredulously. “Shouldn’t I have left a note?”

At that, he has to laugh. The innocence is so pure it makes him feel sinful just standing next to her. “Oh, hon. No. Never leave a note. It’s called a one-night stand for a reason, and now it’s morning.”

Her nose wrinkles up. That, he decides, is especially cute. “It seems rude.”

“Are you worried you’ll hurt the feelings of the guy who probably doesn’t even remember your name?” he challenges with a raised eyebrow.

She tries to argue, he can tell, but in reality she just gapes at him until the understanding that he’s right settles over her.

“Come on, let me buy you breakfast,” he suggests, steering her away from the door and down the hall.

“You? No, thank you. I know your reputation, Oliver Queen,” she mumbles.

That should hurt. He knows he’s got a pretty bad reputation, but hearing it proclaimed through the mumble of a girl who’s clearly been up half the night is just amusing to him.

“Just breakfast,” he tells her.

She eyes him up, goes silent for a long time, and then resigns to the fact that she’s starving.

“Just breakfast,” she agrees.

—

A week later, Felicity Smoak wakes to a warm sheet besides her that still smells like his cologne. She thinks it’s ridiculous, but it’s that cologne that ultimately enticed his way into her bed last night and the reason she’s pretty deliciously sore between her thighs. She even slept naked, which she’s never done, even after sex, and it’s fair to say that sex with Oliver Queen is the most monumental moment of her sex life that may never be topped.

Except he’s gone.

And she probably should have known better.

She sighs, falling back into her pillows with a heavy sigh just as her bedroom door creeps open. Oliver enters, carrying two take-out bags in one arm as the other precariously balances two coffees. She’s looking at him like he’s grown a second head.

“What?” he asks, kicking the door closed. “Am I not doing it right?”

She lifts her head, sitting up as he forces his way back into bed and hands her the coffee. “Doing what right?”

“This,” he says, placing the bacon roll in her lap. “I’ve never not had a one night stand before.”

He’s sticking around, reputation be damned. Going to breakfast with him seems to have been as good an idea as he’s been trying to convince her every morning this week, and taking him to bed seems to have been an absolutely one hundred percent stellar idea.

Maybe it’ll go somewhere. Maybe it won’t. But it’ll be fun while it lasts, and she can do with some good sex.

“Yep,” she declares, opening the wrappings on her bacon roll. “You’re doing it right.”


	31. Seasons May Change [Childhood Friends AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous said: olicity drabble prompt: you’re my best friend’s little sister and I think I’m in love with you and I am so so screwed AU 
> 
> Anonymous said: Can you do something where Felicity is suddenly self-conscious of her glasses. She stops wearing them or something and Oliver’s like “where are your glasses?” Or something like that pleeezzee. P.S. you rock!

She breezed into the kitchen with a radiance that he’d never noticed with her before.

Blonde hair swung over her shoulders, no longer contained with her typical ponytail but curled lightly in a way that made him wonder if that was really it’s natural state and not just how it looked when it was dried from hairspray and stuck to her cheeks as her and Thea stumbled to breakfast after a night out, hiding the hangovers they swore they didn’t have.

Felicity Smoak may not be a girl anymore, but she’s still his little sister’s best friend.

“Hey,” he grinned at her as she slipped away from the busy barbecue in the back yard and made her way into the kitchen, where he was hiding out from the crowd. He wasn’t deliberately hiding, but with his entire extended family out on the patio he really didn’t want to hear his aunt talking about her son’s wonderful wedding for the fifth time.

Her smile split across her features when she saw him standing there, something so pure and free that it even deepened his own. “Hey, how are you doing?” she chirped, putting her empty glass on the island in the centre of the kitchen right next to where he was standing.

“Pretty good,” he nodded. “I didn’t know if you’d be back for the summer or not.”

She gave a dramatic nod over her shoulder, half-rolling her eyes as she did so. “Mom would kill me if I wasn’t,” she pointed out.

It would have dampened his summer as well, but he didn’t tell her that. That would be jumping straight to the ‘inappropriate’ actions that he had talked himself out of since learning she was flying back. “How was….”

“Bali?” she finished for him when he trailed off, her eyes widening in astonishment as she spoke. “Amazing. Seriously, I can’t wait to go back.”

The burn that rose in his stomach was something he could only identify as disappointment. It wasn’t that he didn’t like seeing her this happy, but she was a noticeable absence in his life, though he hadn’t realised how much so until he was reduced to joining Instagram just to watch her endless vacation photographs.

“Oh?” he asked, skillfully covering his disappointment. “So you’re not done travelling then?”

“Yeah,” she sighed regretfully, her features dropping before hope sprang back to them, “but I want to go back some day.”

A warmer smile crossed his lips as he nodded at her, forcing images of the two of them on a Bali beach to the forbidden part of his mind. “You look good,” he praised.

“Thanks,” she beamed, twisting her hands.

“I mean…travelling agrees with you,” he corrected himself.

“People keep saying that,” she told him. “Except Mom, who thinks I’m getting a bit too free.”

He wasn’t surprised. Donna was a very different mother from his own, who had been happy for him to sow his wild oats, so to speak, wherever he felt fit. She, on the other hand, was all Felicity had by means of family, and he knew her mother had spent a lot of time in his own wistfully wishing away the days until her daughter returned.

And now she was back, and an entirely different person. She was curvier, lightly tanned, smiling more than she ever had before. Her eyes were bluer, and…wait…. “Where are your glasses?” he asked.

“I got contacts,” she chirped.

“Oh.”

“Easier for sunglass usage,” she added.

“I guess so,” he nodded, his voice dropping several octaves.

She tilted her head slightly. “Why are you being weird about my glasses?” she asked him curiously.

He nodded towards her shoulder this time, directing her attention away from her question. “Would you prefer it if I were weird about your tan lines?”

Her eyes widened as she tugged the sleeve that had slipped down back into place, covering the very white line that spread through her otherwise even tan. “Don’t! I swear I didn’t spend the last three months like that,” she rushed to explain. “It was a last-day sunbathing accident.”

“Hmm, sure,” he teased.

“It was!” she insisted, smacking his arm lightly as he laughed. “Besides, everyone else took off early and I didn’t have any of the girls to help me do my back.”

“I’d have helped you out,” he blurted out before he covered it quickly. “Theoretically speaking.”

“Oliver.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re being weird,” she noticed, her smile not dropping.

“I’m not being weird, I’m being how I’ve always been,” he insisted.

“Like the boy who has crush on his sister’s friend and now she did the nerd-to-pretty transformation?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

“Don’t say that,” he frowned.

“Oh,” she mumbled, taking a deep breath and reaching for her empty glass as if she had horrifically embarrassed herself. “Oh, God, so, was I wrong about…”

He stopped her oncoming ramble by placing his hand over her wrist before she could pull away from him. She paused, but looked back at him with a confused wrinkle of her eyebrows. “Don’t insinuate that you weren’t pretty before,” he told her. “You’ve always been pretty.”

Her breath shuddered as she shook her head. “Oliver…”

“You do know that, don’t you?” he checked, his voice firm.

To his dismay, her reply was a shrug and a disbelieving sigh. “I never felt it,” she confessed.

Boldly closing the space between them, Oliver placed his hands on her cheeks. It’d be so easy to kiss her, so damn easy it was pulsing through him, but he didn’t. There were lines he couldn’t cross with his sister’s best friend, even though he wanted to, even though she was beautiful and perfect. “You don’t need a tan and contact lenses to be beautiful, Felicity.”

She bit her lip, and he almost groaned. “You miss the glasses, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he confessed in a single breath. “You’re not you without them.”

She nodded, pressing her face closer into his touch. “Well, Thea insisted I come by for dinner tomorrow and probably for the rest of the summer so i guess you’ll be seeing a lot of them,” she explained quietly.

“Every night?” he questioned.

“I’m sure I could escape one night,” she suggested. “Maybe. If I had plans.”

“What kind of plans?”

“Like…dinner, or a movie, with a person,” she hinted.

His stomach sank as he nodded, his gaze finally torn from hers. “Oh. Oh, yeah, I’m sure you… have a lot of plans.”

“Oliver.”

“Yeah,” he hummed.

“I’m trying to get you to ask me on a date.”

“Oh!” A date. With him. She wanted to go on a date. With him. She wanted him to ask her on a date. Him. On a date. With her. Oliver Queen on a date. With Felicity Smoak. “Oh, right.”

“If you want to,” she added, biting down on her lip again.

This time he didn’t hide his response, his tongue flicking out to lick at his lips in a mirror of her own. “Yes. Definitely,” he insisted.

Her smile returned, taking a deep breath. “So, Friday? I’ll meet you here?” she suggested.

“Friday,” he repeated with a firm nod. “I’ll…make reservations.”

“Great,” she smiled. “I’ll see you Friday.”

“Friday. Yes,” he carried on nodding as she refilled her glass and went back out onto the patio.

Unfortunately, he ridiculous grin was spotted by Thea, who waltzed into the kitchen moments after Felicity left. She followed his gaze to how the blonde flitted back into conversation outside with some of their friends and laughed in his face as she continued past him.

“Oliver?”

“What, Thea?”

“You’re such a dork,” she mocked him.

“Shut up,” he told her, knocking his shoulder against hers and jogging her as she poured her own drink. “I have a date.”


	32. Shock and Awe [College AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> felicitysmoaklover said: Hey, sorry I don’t know if your taking prompts at the moment but I’ve just seen a video and it made me think of an amazing olicity fic. College age, felicity being in her wheelchair and wanting to walk to get her degree. Oliver (either friend or boyfriend) helps her surprise everyone, especially her mom, by supporting her as she walks to collect her degree. Can olicity get together by the end of it. Thank you. I feel your the best person for this fic :) (I love your writing!!)

“Are you sure about this?”

It’s a question he’s asked her fifteen times in the last ten months - which, technically, was breaking her rules. She’d told him he was allowed to ask her that question once a month at most, but he’s not very good at listening to rules, even when they come from her. It’s a routine - he asks, she says yes, and then they go back to whatever they were doing only moments before. But she loves that he asks, because this is a huge thing he’s helped her achieve and she loves him for that and a whole lot more.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She loves him enough not to tell him that no matter how many times he asks, she’ll always be sure.

He bites down on his lip when he nods, glancing down for just a moment before he looks back at her. She finds it adorable that he’s feeling the nerves for her, but she’s really not nervous about this moment at all.

“Because it’s not too late to change your mind.”

“I’m definitely not changing my mind,” she says with half a laugh, because really, his anxiety over this moment shouldn’t be nearly as high as it is.

“Felicity…” he starts.

She leans forward in her chair, grasping both his hands in hers. It’s a shame they won’t get to do this as often anymore because she’s taking today as a starting point for something more, and ultimately that means that this favoured position where he crouches in front of her wheelchair and they sit close and connected will filter away. But she’s excited to see what takes it’s place.

“Oliver, I’m going to do this,” she tells him.

The nerves fade into one of those smiles that makes her knees weak - metaphorically speaking - well, not so much anymore. “Okay, just checking.”

Felicity leans in a fraction more, pecking her lips against the tip of his nose. Every time she does that, he wrinkles his nose and it just makes her want to do it again. “You worry too much,” she tells him. She chastises him for it, but really, she relies on it. They’re both pretty reckless when it comes to themselves, but when they consider each other they’re care more cautious.

“I just don’t want this to go wrong,” he tells her. “If you fall…”

“I’m not going to fall,” she stops him quickly.

“I’m not doubting you, Felicity, you know that, I’m just-”

Being realistic. They’ve said those words before because they’ve been told multiple times that this feat is a way of getting their hopes up perhaps more than they should, but everyone involved has encouraged it because it’s been a goal for her, and it’s something that she’s needed to bring a positive forward focus into her life, something that she had momentarily lost at the start of all this.

“I know I’m not going to fall, because you’re going to be holding my hand,” she reminds him with her brightest smile. “And if this doesn’t go right then I know I won’t even hit the ground.”

That seems to reassure him more, because they both know she’s right. He’s always picked her back up again, whether it was the way she physically needed it when she was first getting used to her wheelchair, emotionally when things were dire and he would bring home her favourite ice cream, or the way he would always place her on a metaphorical pedestal.

He starts to reel off the plan they’ve gone over a thousand times, from the days it was an early far-off dream to this morning’s eighteen times when it’s just a reminder of what’s to come. “So I’m going to get my degree, then come back across the stage, and when they call your name we’ll walk across to get your degree.”

“Yep,” she chirps with a firm nod.

“And the professor already knows,” he checks.

“Yes, everything’s taken care of.”

“And your Mom really doesn’t even suspect…”

“It took a lot of thinking, but Paul didn’t let her know that he’d been changing the therapy sessions.”

That’s something that’s been the biggest part of the plan. Donna doesn’t know a thing, the woman who has pushed her even more than Oliver to remain positive in face of the new changes in her life. Really, she’s missed having her mother’s support while she was reaching for this goal but wanting to surprise her with this was something she was far more desperate for. It’s not something she needs to do, but her mother never once let her believe that this would change her life for the worse, and she wants to show her this as a thank you for all her support.

“I can’t wait to see the look on her face,” Oliver tells her, as if he knew what she was thinking about. “And your face.”

She frowns slightly in confusion. “Mine?”

“Felicity, this is a huge thing for you,” he points out. “I know you want to surprise your family, but do you realise that in five minutes you’ll be walking across that stage to collect two masters degrees? Walking. Did you ever imagine you’d be doing this two years ago?”

No. No, she hasn’t, and his words hit home for that. While Oliver and her physical therapist have been building her up for what this means for her, she’s been far more focused on other people’s reactions than her own that she hasn’t really stopped to think about the place she was two years ago.

Her and Oliver had been out to dinner celebrating their four year anniversary when a car had mounted the sidewalk and hit her in a freak accident. The drunk driver’s inevitable death at the wheel hadn’t been nearly as devastated as the spinal injury it had left her with. They told her she might walk again, but they couldn’t guarantee it, and while it had been hard at first she had eventually adjusted to their new lifestyle and decided on her goal of walking on her graduation day.

And of course he had been there every moment. Oliver, the childhood best friend turned childhood sweetheart who hasn’t left her side even for a second. He was at the hospital when the doctors delivered the bad news, had their tiny studio apartment they shared through their college years altered for all her needs before she’d even left the hospital, and even on days she was screaming her frustrations at him he has loved her unconditionally, eternally, and hasn’t ever stopped.

“No. I didn’t imagine a lot of things two years ago.”

He’s going to propose to her tonight. She’s not supposed to know, but he’s terrible at hiding things from her and she’s seen him patting his pants pocket to check the ring is still there a few times this morning.

“Well then, before everyone else trips over themselves to tell you this, I want you to hear it from me first,” he tells her.

“What’s that?” she asks with an arch of her eyebrow.

“That I am incredibly proud of you these last two years.” She huffs out a small laugh, shaking her head. “No, don’t laugh, I mean it. You took a bad situation and you’ve flourished. You didn’t let it get you down, you fought, and now everyone gets to see how brave you’ve been, and they’ll all tell you that. They’ll tell you that you’re brave, but I want you to believe it most when I say it because I’ve seen you on the days that it wasn’t easy, when your whole body hurt, when anyone else would have been too tired to carry on, and you didn’t let it stop you.”

His words bring tears to her eyes, ones that threaten the eyeliner she’s had to correct three times this morning. “Oliver…”

“I love you, and you know that, but you’re my biggest inspiration,” he continues, squeezing her hands a little after he places a kiss in each palm. “I’m happy to have become the better person that being at your side makes me.”

She squeezes his hands back. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you, you know.”

“Yes, you could,” he disregards. “This was all you.”

“But you were there every step of the way,” she points out with a shrug of after-thought. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“And I’m going to be there for every next step,” he beams proudly. “Literally speaking.”

“You’re wrong about one thing though.”

“What’s that?” he asks with a tilt of his head.

“I don’t think my surprise is going to compare to how surprised your parents are going to be to see you graduate.”

She bursts into a laugh immediately after as he nods, getting to his feet as he gazes down at her. Things are starting to arrive and he walks around the back of her chair and takes the handles. “Oh, funny. Real funny, Smoak.”

“It’s true,” she proclaims happily, not complaining as he starts to push her towards the other students. He spots his parents in the crowd taking their seats and gives a wave to his younger sister who catches his eye and waves frantically at them both.

“Well, I owe that to you as well,” he points out. “You’ve made me a better man.”

“And you’re going to make me an Olympic athlete at this rate,” she mutters, not wanting to draw the attention of anyone who might give away the surprise they’re about to unveil.

He leans over the back of her chair, tilting her chin up to an awkward kiss. “Walking first, then running,” he tells her.

With her head thrown back still, she winks up at him. “Watch me.”

“Can’t wait.”


	33. Possession [Bratva AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @sissy452 said: After reading Blast from the past. Yum! 

The door slams behind her so loudly when she enters his office that he’s certain it would have attracted the attention of most of his guests this evening. “ _That_ was rude,” she snaps harshly as she brushes past him, tensing her shoulder as she did so that he could feel it.

“That was none of your concern,” he counters, his eyes purely on the cufflinks he was slipping from his sleeves. He’d lost his jacket the moment he returned to his office, but she’s still dressed in her wine-red evening gown with her hair as perfect as she’d fixed it some hours ago. She holds an evening well, always has, always will, but nothing suits her quite as much as an expression that tells him that she’s furious at him.

“It’s entirely my concern,” she shoots back at him, moving only a few steps past him before she turns to face him again.

“Go back to the party,” he instructs her simply, turning to his desk and placing away the paperwork that he’d neglected earlier that afternoon.

“Why? So you can stare at me from across the room and pretend I’m your property?” she counters, gesturing out with her arms.

“Felicity-”

“You make me _so angry_ sometimes, Oliver,” she grits out, barely separating her teeth to seeth the words out at him.

But for all of the fury she carries in her tiny form, it can’t match the rage that’s coursing through his veins that moment. She should know better. She should know that he’s come here to control himself, to calm himself down in the ways that she’s taught him over the years of their marriage, and she should certainly know better than to come and interrupted him. “ _I_ make _you_ angry?”

“ _Yes_!” she exclaims loudly. “You can’t just go all alpha male any time a guy looks at me!”

“He was doing more than looking at you,” he tells her lowly.

“Yes, he was,” she agrees. “He was talking to me because he had a vested interest in my business. Shocker.”

“Felicity-”

“But _thank you_ for assuming that I was going to let him feel me up under the table rather than considering the idea that someone might actually have use for my skills,” she chides in that angry tone that would have most men running for the hills. Because she’s not just angry, she’s humiliated, she’s insulted, and it’s all because he’s acted without thinking once again.

A better man would have been able to admit to that and move on.

Not him.

“I have use for your skills,” he reminds her, casting his eyes over each curve that the dress reveals. She’s a beautiful woman, his wife, especially when she’s as feisty as she is in her rage.

“Do _not_ look at me like that,” she warns him with narrowed eyes, poking a furious finger into the centre of his chest.

When his head tilts, his expression turns challenging. “I thought I wasn’t in control of who looked at you,” he reminds her, skating his hand up her back, beginning his path at her lower back where the tantalizing fabric drew to a stop.

“No, I _mean_ it!” she smacks his hand away, stepping out of his arms. “This isn’t one of those fights that turns into sex.”

He follows her with each step. “I like it when you’re fired up like this,” he reminds her, both hands finding her waist.

But she’s not to be deterred. “You aren’t even sleeping in the bed with me tonight, you do realise that?”

“Felicity…”

“No. You were _beyond_ rude tonight,” she reiterates. “I actually had to apologise for your behaviour.”

“He should have apologised for his,” he mutters.

“For being interested in me as businesswoman?” she scoffs, drawling sarcastically. “How awful of him.”

“Felicity-”

“No, _stop_ trying to justify what you did tonight,” she tells him. “It was wrong. That’s not up for debate.”

“Felicity, I’m sorry” he sighs, as though his confession were an inconvenience, not a courtesy.

“Good,” she states.

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

She keeps her eyes on him as though she’s the most dangerous threat he faces in this line of work. He supposes, really, that she is. She’s the biggest key to his downfall, the surest path to causing him pain. She has given him an entire world of love, of happiness, of support, and she could take it all away from him so quickly. She will never be swayed by false promises and the air of mystery that so many others have fallen for in the past, and he supposes that is why he’s married her - because she challenges him.

“I feel threatened when other men speak to you,” he tells her.

It’s no omission for his behaviour, but it’s enough of an explanation for her liking, but she doesn’t flinch at his confession. “You shouldn’t,” she reminds him. “You know I have no interest in other men that way.”

“I know, and I trust you,” he insists, knowing far better than to draw her loyalty into question. “But I also know that you deserve far better than me, and that understanding comes with the knowledge that any better man can give you a better life.”

Her features soften at those words, one of her hands coming up to his cheek. The way he leans into it is instinctive, an action born from years of her reaching for him and him blindly following her without question. “Oliver…”

He brings his hand up to cover hers. “You’re my entire world, my entire heart, and it’s hard for me to accept that so many other man are a better choice for you.”

“But you’re my choice,” she reminds him.

“I know, but in moments my insecurity shows through…”

He stops speaking when her lips touch his, stops breathing when her tongue touches his and she moans when his hands slip beneath the hem on the back of her dress. She breaks away with a heated expression, tugging his hands away from their dangerous path and pulling him towards the leather couch that lines one side of his office.

“Come here,” she tells him simply, turning to walk backwards once her path is clearly obvious so that she can work on the buttons holding his shirt closed.

“I thought his wasn’t leading to sex,” he teases her, sliding his hands up her legs and taking her dress with it so he can delight in the revelation that she’s forgone underwear again.

“Do you want to make it up to me, or not?” she questions.

“Definitely,” he murmurs against her lips, before he hoists her up into his arms and lowers her back down onto the leather.


	34. Hold Out Hope [Memory Loss AU]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @geniewithwifi said: SAM! ILY. Prompt– Felicity meets Oliver at gala and starts to fall in love with him. Someone close to Felicity cautions her about Oliver but she ignores them. As she continues to date Oliver, Felicity finds out some how that she lost her memory three years ago. Turns out, she had been engaged to Oliver. WRITE THE THING PLEASE :)

She collapses onto the couch and raises her feet over the arm straight away, swinging her legs slightly as she gushes endlessly about her evening. Caitlin’s not quite as happy to hear about the night as Felicity is to chatter away about it, but she doesn’t mind all that much. She can hardly remember the last time she had such a fun evening that didn’t involve a Netflix binge (even if Netflix seems to list everything under ‘watch again’) and a tub of ice cream. “And _oh_ , Caitlin, I haven’t danced like like that all night in _years_. My feet were aching this morning and-”

“Felicity…”

She sits up a little as Caitlin passes her a mug of coffee. It’s much needed. Not for the hangover but more for the fact that she didn’t get in until three o’clock in the morning because she was up all night dancing and talking and dancing and talking and…everything. “He was _gorgeous_ , Cait,” she half moans, tipping her head back without spilling her coffee over herself. “ _Seriously_ , like Greek God level.”

But she still doesn’t pay attention to the pure excitement. Felicity doesn’t give up her point. She has to listen to her talk the guys she’s avoiding and the guys who have broken her heart and the guys she knows will one day break her heart, and this is the first time that Felicity’s gone to her about a guy that makes her feel something.

“Felicity, maybe…”

“I gave him my number,” she blurts.

At that, Caitlin’s eyes widen, her lips part with alarm and her coffee goes down her pajama shirt. “ _What_?” she squeaks.

Felicity rolls her eyes, tucking her legs underneath her so Caitlin has a chance to sit down before she falls down entirely. “I _know_ , it was reckless, it was-”

“Felicity, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Caitlin starts carefully.

She’s prepared for the ‘girls stick together’ safety talk, she really is, especially as she’s usually the one giving it, but today she doesn’t need it. Today she wants her best friend to sit on the couch and talk about the amazing guy that could turn into an amazing date and maybe an amazing break from the monotony of ‘be careful’ that everyone in her life directed at her. “You were the one who told me to get out there-”

“I know, but-”

“And as soon as I find a guy who I really like, you think it’s a bad idea?” she says incredulously, and a little disappointed.

Caitlin chews on her lip. “Not the idea just… Oliver, really?”

There’s something in her tone that sends a spark of something unfamiliar down Felicity’s spine. She knew that it wasn’t the sound of his name this time though, not like it had done last night when he’d introduced himself. “Do you know him?” she asks.

Her friend shakes her head, but she doesn’t meet her eyes when she does. Instead she glances around the room as if she’s lost in something Felicity isn’t a part of. “I don’t think he’s the best person for you, Felicity,” she says simply.

“Well, _I_ do,” she replies indignantly.

“Felicity-”

And just like that, Oliver goes to to the number two spot on the ‘ _we don’t talk about it_ ’ list. Right under The Accident.

—

Oliver comes to Central City the following month, and even though they’ve spoken on the phone most days since that party they met out, it gives her butterflies when she sees him in a more casual attire. Sure, the suit was nice, but he looks pretty damn good in a checkered shirt and denim that clings in all the right places. Better still, he looks at her the same way and she knows that she’s not the only one who really wants to see where this goes.

“So, what am I missing?” she asks him, as the sun goes down in the park and they’re working their way through their third set of ice cream cones.

“What do you mean?” he asks, toying with the zipper of his hoodie, which is draped around her shoulders.

He kissed her earlier. It was soft, sweet, like they’d done it a thousand times and he hadn’t even needed to think about kissing that leftover mint chip off the corner of her lips. It felt like fire. It still does.

“You’re gorgeous, you make me laugh, you’re gorgeous-” she lists off, waving her ice cream with each point on her list.

“You said that twice,” he laughs.

“With good reason,” she points out, gesturing to him. “But despite everything, every person I’ve told about you thinks it’s a terrible idea,” she tells him.

Something about that sits badly with him. She can see that in the way that his brow furrows for a moment, and it doesn’t just seems like he’s confused. But she focuses more on how the scruff on his jaw makes that downturn of his lips churn in her stomach like she wants him to go back to smiling with every inch of her being.

That’s not surprising, because his smile is seriously _wow_.

“Why?” he asks nonchalantly.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she murmurs.

He never takes his eyes off of her. He looks at her as if she’s better than the sunset that he was the one who insisted they watch together before he has to head back to his weekend plans. She can tell he’s lingering, that he wants to stay with her. She’s not crazy about the idea of this first date coming to an end either.

“Do you trust me?” he asks her, with a curious tilt of his head. The action itself is adorable and she can’t help but smile.

“Yes,” she says without hesitation.

His thumb sneaks up and wipes another drop of melted ice cream off her lower lip. “Then why does it matter what they think?”

—

She goes to stay at his place in Star City when they’ve been official for two days. Oliver visits Central City quite a lot which makes things pretty convenient for things to get to the third date, but she doesn’t go to bed with him until he invites her to hers for the weekend and she takes the train to Star City after work on Friday and wakes up on Saturday morning with a pleasant ache between her thighs and the scent of waffles in the air.

She finds him in the kitchen without his shirt on - because she’s wearing it, a quick steal from the bedroom floor where it had been tossed last night. She’s about to slip her arms around his waist, place a lazy kiss to his shoulder, when something stops her.

_Waffles. Diner. Two coffees. Laughter. His blue t-shirt._

“This is my favorite breakfast,” she murmurs.

He turns to glance at her quickly over his shoulder, flashing her the same smile he’s been giving her for weeks. “I know. You told me last night. That’s why I made it.”

“But it’s my favourite for a reason,” she tells him, not moving an inch.

He pauses to turn back to her properly, but more things barrage her mind and it makes her take a step back. His concern grows, but she can’t feel bad about this because this can’t be happening and it shouldn’t be happening and three words keep resonating in her head: _Caitlin was right._

“Felicity?” he questions.

She swallows thickly before she speaks next, because as far as she’s concerned, these words shouldn’t be real. Because it can’t be real. Because if it’s real, this means that this is everything she can ever remember being afraid of and she hasn’t even seen it coming. “It’s my favorite breakfast because it’s what we ate in Michigan when we were on the road.”

And she’s right. Caitlin was right. She can’t deny it. Not when Oliver stops like he’s been knocked back because everything she doesn’t want to be real is far too real. This is a level of reality she hasn’t had to consider for so long and she’s not ready.

“Feli-”

She’s _not_ ready.

“I’ve never been to Michigan,” she cuts him off with an audible tremor in her tone. “So how did we have breakfast in Michigan on a trip we never took?”

His silence is all she needs. She has been to Michigan. So has he. Because they went together. Because he knew her before The Accident. And if he knew her well enough for them to be together in a diner in Michigan then…

She’s bolting from the room, gathering what’s left of her clothing from Oliver’s bedroom floor and dressing as quickly as she can. He doesn’t follow her, but he does reach out to follow her when she gets her bag from the living room and moves for the door.

“Felicity, _please_ -”

“I need to go,” she insists.

His hand almost closes over her arm but she rips herself away, opens the door and forces herself out into the hall before her chest tightens any further and she physically can’t.

“Please, let me-”

“I have to go,” she calls back over her shoulder.

She doesn’t look back.

She’s so afraid of looking back.

—

It takes a month for her to end up back in Star City, on his doorstep. He texts her that he’s sorry, that he hopes she got home safe. When there’s no reply a day later he’d tried to call her but she hadn’t answered. She doesn’t switch her phone off, but she never answers his calls. She never knows what to say, not until she confided in Caitlin and now… now she’s standing on his doorstep, waiting for him to answer, and when the door’s opened before her she finds that maybe she doesn’t need to say anything in.

He invites her inside, offers her a drink, and she accepts his offer of a hot chocolate without mentioning how exhausted he looks and how she knows that it’s nothing to do with it being almost midnight, or how he clearly hasn’t trimmed his facial hair in far longer than he should.

“Caitlin said we were practically married,” she tells him when they’re sat side by side on his couch, partly facing each other but mostly staring down into the matching mugs. Her thumbnail toys with a chip in the handle and she wonders if this was her mug Before because one thing she’s very sure of herself is that she’s clumsy.

“Yeah,” he replies, his voice raspy. “Our wedding was supposed to be two weeks after the accident.”

Oliver’s words are raw, not just to her ears but even as they leave his throat; as though this conversation was never meant to happen, as though he wasn’t supposed to say these things to her but here they are, and the words burn their presence clear.

“You were the guy in the hospital,” she realises quietly.

“When?”

“When I woke up,” she replies at his frown. “My mom was telling that someone was there to see me, but then the memory thing became apparent and-”

He cut her off with a nod, one that accompanies a sad smile that she feels in the pit of her stomach. “You didn’t remember me.”

She wonders for a moment how that might have felt; to have been waiting for someone to wake up, to be told you might lose them, only to find out they’re further away that you could have ever imagined. She’s not sure she could handle something like that, but he has. He’s handled it for three years. He’s known where she is, and what she means, the entire time and he’s kept her far away from him because she isn’t his anymore. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. None of it was your fault,” he insists.

His hand flinches as if he’s going to reach for hers. He stops himself.

“Cait said you blame yourself,” she tells him.

Oh, how he almost crumples as he nods. Part of her recognises the way his face cracks, first between his eyes and then in the twist of his lips before he recovers back with a swift inhale. “I was driving the car,” he confesses.

“You didn’t crash it,” she tells him quickly, and she’s not sure why she feels so strongly about that but it must mean something. “I don’t think.” She hopes that it means something because the idea of it being his fault is something she doesn’t want to think about.

Instead he sighs, running a hand over his face as he leans his elbows forward on his knees. “Everyone thought it’d be a good idea for me to stay away, since they couldn’t say when your memory would come back.”

“And we found each other again anyway,” she says with a nervous laugh, but his returning nod is far more seriously.

“Don’t think this is any kind of obligation, Felicity.”

“I don’t,” she assures him, taking a breath. “It feels more…”

“Like we’re supposed to be together,” he finishes quietly when she trails off.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

Her fingers reach out for his, and the innocence that was their in their dates has vanished; maybe because they aren’t the same people anymore, but probably because they were never those people to begin with. “It was _all_ real for me, you have to know that,” he tells her, gazing down at their hands as her fingers toy with his. “All of this…it’s all been real feelings, the real me.”

“But it wasn’t a beginning for you,” she points out.

“It was, in a way,” he murmurs. “It felt different this time.”

“Bad different?”

He shakes his head. “Not any better or worse. It…the way we met and fell in love was… _unique_ ,” he speaks slowly, as if he can’t quite put it into words. “If we hadn’t lead the life we had, I’d like to have thought that we’d have fallen in love like this.”

The thought is nice, regardless. Caitlin’s told her a great many things, and she can’t deny that this would have been nice - first dates in the park, second dates at a coffee place, third dates in a fancy restaurant that doesn’t seem to suit either of them from the way people stare at their endless laughter.

“Cait said you were quite the superhero.”

He scoffs slightly, shaking his head as he seems to relax more. “I was _nothing_ without you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she cracks a smile.

“It’s still true today,” he mutters, his eyes meeting hers with a sudden intensity that has her drawing her fingers away from his.

“Oliver…”

“You don’t have to push for anything that you don’t want,” he assures her quickly.

Felicity’s breath comes out as a heavy sigh, the conflict evident from her tone. “I _care_ about you.”

“I care about you too.”

“But I’m still figuring out…”

He cuts her off by taking her hand in his properly this time, squeezing his large digits around her palm in a way that should be invasive, and yet it feels reassuring. “Felicity… you lost _everything_ ,” he reminds her. “I lost everything along with you, but at least… I’m very grateful to have the memories of our time together that I do, even though it didn’t last as long as I’d have liked, and I hope that you get those memories back someday, I truly do. But if that doesn’t happen, know that I’m right here ready to make new ones with you.”

“But not yet,” she finishes for him.

She wonders what it must be like for him. He holds memories of her - of them - that she can never dream to imagine. She remembered flashes of Michigan, but even after all Caitlin told her, nothing felt familiar since.

She wonders if he’s afraid of losing parts of her she’s already resigned as gone. She’d understand if he was. Forgetting things is scary.

He nods, squeezing her hand once more. “I’m sure all of this has been overwhelming and you’re willing to dive into a tub of mint chip-”

“How did you… _oh_ ,” she finishes with a small laugh.

“My point is, take your time,” he tells her. “Don’t rush into anything because you know it’s what I want. That’s never been you. You’re a strong woman, you know what you want and how you’re going to get it.”

Oliver places her on a pedestal so easily. She imagines that he did that a lot. She wonders if it made her cheeks burn the same way before. “You have a lot of faith in me,” she mutters in distraction from her glowing cheeks.

“It’s well placed,” he assures her. “You’re Felicity Smoak.”

“Yes, I am,” she replies with a nod.

“So I guess there’s just one thing left to say,” he sighs.

“What’s that?”

He turns to her fully, placing down the mug of hot chocolate that he’s not taken a single sip from, and extends his hand to her. He still looks tired, but it’s a far more welcome fatigue on his features this time. She smiles carefully at him as she takes his hand, wondering where this is leading, until he begins a simple handshake.

“Hi, I’m Oliver Queen.”

Those words warm her from the very insides. A flash of pink and blue and red rushes to her vision but she can’t quite place the memory with it. All she knows is that whatever it’s trying to tell her, it’s a good thing.

“Hi, Oliver,” she smiles back.

“It’s nice to meet you,” he tells her, not letting go of her hand.

She clears her throat, taking a steadying breath before she replies. “Do you…I don’t suppose you want to go and get some waffles?” she asks him hesitantly.

“It’s almost midnight,” he reminds her, without even glancing at the clock which for some reason she’s very aware can only been seen from the other end of the couch.

“I don’t think I’m going to sleep much tonight,” she tells him, “and you look like the kind of guy who has a lot of stories to tell.”

An hour later they’re seated in a small diner, with two coffees, matching smiles, and their feet touching innocently beneath the table.

“Did I ever tell you about my time in China?” he asks her as the waitress leaves them with a stack of waffles they plan on sharing.

Her head tilts. “No, you didn’t.”

“It’s a long story,” he half-warns her, but that hopeful grin matches her own as she more purposefully nudges her foot against his.

“That’s okay, I like long stories.”

She gets the feeling that their story will be especially long.


End file.
